Relocating to Utah

[Gilly, BSN]

Hello!

I am planning on relocating to Salt Lake City for a while just to experience a different area, advance my career and meeting new people. I was wondering, what is the patient to nurse ratio in Utah? I live in Southern California and the patient to nurse ratio is 1 nurse to 4-5 patients in our Medical/Surgical floor. At times when they are short of nurses we go up to 6 but it is rare.

I have 2 years of experience in Medical/Surgical floor. I plan on acquiring my Bachelors through the University of Utah. My sister who lives there has mentioned of a work study program at the University. I was wondering if there are any nurses or student nurses who've done this?

I love Utah and can't wait to meet other nurses!

[RavenAngel]

Expect a paycut if you are used to CA wages. I moved to Utah three years ago , and still only make my new grad base pay from Oregon

[tfleuter, BSN, RN]

It evens out, cost of living in UT is generally lower than in CA and OR

[RavenAngel]

In my personal experience, cost of living is much higher and wages much lower, but maybe it will work out better for you than me.

Really though, Utah is a nice place, I didn't mean to sound harsh.

[MagsMom]

I have not heard of a work/study program at the U. What did your sister say it was?

I do not know the nurse patient ratio but do know that I hear about how hard it is to find a job at the University Hospital.

Let us know what you find out about the work/study program. Good luck with the BSN program.

[NancyPie]

I don't know about Salt Lake, but St. George where I did my clinicals was about the same :)

[PACNWNURSING]

Expect a huge pay cut from California, Intermountain New grad pay is 21.80 an hour. Cost of living is not as cheap as people mention. I came from Washington State and I am made more money as an LPN there and I am an RN now... Great place to live but the nursing salaries do not cut it.

[Yuppers21]

I'm really suprised to hear others say that the cost of living in Utah is no lower than CA or OR. I have family in Portland, OR, and I am always noticing things that are more expensive there (groceries, entertainment, property taxes). Yes, the pay cut is huge, but I can't say that I saw a noticeable difference in standard of living between the two areas (OR and UT, never been to CA). Of courses, I've only visited OR, so I'm not going to be as aware of the difference as those that have lived in other states. I lived in the midwest before, and pay and cost of living were all very similar to UT.