RN Pay

Twenty something a hour in most parts of the U.S.; Yes, you may have heard of nurses making 70-80k, but that is with plenty of overtime and maybe no benifits. Shadow some RNs before you do anything, also another thing most nursing schools will not tell you is that it takes at leats a master's degree to get to the good nursing and other medical jobs. For example, to become a NP,CRNA, pharmD, PT, or MD. These jobs have much more autonomy, respect and pay than your regular bedside RN positions.

The thing I ask most people who are considering the move to being a nurse is are you ok without having plenty of autonomy and calling the shots? If you are not, you will probably never be happy being a nurse. Although, has I mentioned if you get a masters and become a NP or CRNA you have much more autonomy, not to mention you will not have do all the dirty work that comes with bedside nursing.

The positives to being a bedside nurse, you play a vital role in the patient's care, job security, wide variety of nursing fields to specialize in, and it is a noble profession. I have the greatest respect for good nurses because it is such a hard and many times thankless job, I just could not accept the lack of autonomy. I just always found myself wanting to learn more and have greater say so in the medical plan, not just carry out the orders of the medical plan. Good luck with your investigation of this profession.

Anyone else?

Buehler...Buehler...:)

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the Bay area, and am not even a nurse yet anyway (reading MICU's posts often make me want to change my major back to pre-med, but anyway...) - Did you try sites like salary.com? Or search jobsearch.org for listings (sometimes they include salary)?

Good luck.... :)

Starting pay in the Kansas City area is about $19/hr for new grads. Shift differential is about $3, and weekend is about the same. So...I would guess the pay in your area would be about $25 per hour, since the cost of living is so much higher. Hope this is helpful.