RN Relocating to Atlanta, Best Hospital/Employment (ICU-CCU Training)

[Entrepenurse]

Hi fellow nursing teamsters. I am a RN looking to relocate to the Atlanta Area. I've been doing my due diligence(homework) on making this process as smooth as possible, hoping that some of you could give some helpful advice. Just to give you a little about myself, I'm presently an RN with 10-12 years of nursing exp. Started as a LPN around 2000, became a RN in 2003. Have worked various ares of nursing throughout the years, currently working Med-Surg. I feel that for me to become a better nurse I need to broaden my nursing experience and knowledge base. My ultimate goal is to work in the cardiac cath lab, or get some cath lab exp., however in my research it have become apparent that most cath labs require the nurse have critical care experience(CCU or ICU) some will hire in with telemetry, but most tel/nurses agree that their coworkers with crical care exp. in the cath lab progress faster d/t knowledge of how to read, tx, etc. arrhythmias. I've conversed with a couple of nurses in general about nursing in the atlanta area, these are the facilities they've mentioned. Emory, St. Joseph's, VA Hospital, Piedmont, and Grady. In my moving to Alanta, I want to become experienced in CCU/ICU or which ever will prepar me best for a cath lab job, choose the best facility to get this experience, and not compromise(or compromise as little as possible) my years experience to pay ratio. I would greatly appreciate any advice/help with the following:

1. Where is the best hospital in Atlanta to get CCU/ICU experience. (Emory, St. JOE's, VA, Piedmont, or an other known facilites out there).

2. Which will prepare best for cath lab CCU/ICU, are these units generally combined in Atlanta hospitals.

3. What type of pay scale can a 10 year exp. nurse expect in Atlanta.

4. What's the best method to gain nursing employment at these facilities: Access a recruiter, attend job fair, submit application in general to HR, etc.

5. What other info should I consider RN relocation to Atlanta, experience, pay, critical care employment facility etc.

[Flying ICU RN]

1. where is the best hospital in atlanta to get ccu/icu experience. (emory, st. joe's, va, piedmont, or an other known facilites out there).

i have been a vha nurse in florida my entire career. i was hired in 1994 (an airline refugee) for ltc then transferred to icu the following year, having been there ever since. i highly recommend to anyone to get into the va (if you can, somewhat competitive now).

the reason being that your position, pay and benefits package is the “law of the land,” specifically title 38 of the u.s. code of federal regulations. essentially, you are an executive branch federal employee. no other employer can offer you that, not even hoffa's teamsters can beat that.

so if offered a postion by any va facility (in any capacity),..take it!

[mgh000]

i was born and raised in atlanta, got my bsn there, did clinical in a majority of the metro-atlanta hospitals. moved north mainly because of the pay in ga is among the lowest.

#1. i would tell you st. jo's. one of my friends works in the cvicu there and they are one of the top cardiac hospitals in the nation (don't know the rank, but if you want to do cath lab i would def. put them at the top of your list) - you'll get a lot of good cardiac experience. emory would be 2nd, i rotated in all of the emory's around atlanta. emory will look good on your resume since they are so well know and you'll get a good amount of experience there too.

i would say def. pass on the va - i've heard horror stories about them (could be wrong, i don't speak from experience).

piedmont - caters to nurses, i rotated in there cardiac/tele med-surg there and everyone i talked to loves it there. (money wise.. not so much)

grady and amc (atlanta medical which is down the street from grady, its runner up) - is trauma central, its inner city with all the inner city perks.

northside is the top l&d hospital and is known for it.

i can tell you if i was going for cardiac myself, st. jo's would be the first hospital i'd apply to.

#2 some icu's are all combined, but in the major/trauma hospitals the majority are going to be separate, micu, cvicu, sicu etc.

#3 i know experience nurses make more, obviously.. but the south in general pays a lot lower than the northeast and west coast. but, the cost of living is def cheaper.

#4 i would do all the above. in this economy a lot of units aren't taking on new nurses unless they plan on staying a while. but there are always jobs and retirees, so do it all.

hope this helps!!

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

moved to georgia nurses