San Diego Area Hospitals

[Ashley2011]

Hello nursing friends!

My husband and I were looking to re-locate from Houston, TX to San Diego area next summer. I have my BSN, 1yr CCU/stepdown and I'm currently working in the ICU where I've been for the past yr. Can anyone tell me what are some good facilities? So far, I've read that Sharp, Scripps and UCSD have good reputations. Also, I've read that San Diego salaries are some of the lowest in the state, but do some hospital pay better than others?

I know hiring is extremely competitive throughout the entire state of CA. Is it still very difficult to find a job for everyone or are just the new graduates having a hard time? I really want to move to San Diego and I'd even consider travel nursing if it would take me there, I'm just hesitant because I don't know much about travel nursing.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Ashley

[liberty_bell]

I would go the travel nursing route. I was just at Balboa a month ago and several of the nurses on the floor were travel. Hospital pay is lower then what you'd think for living in socal. It doesn't make up for the col (cost of living) at all. I'm pretty sure they can pay lower wages to nurses here because there are just so many. It's very over saturated here.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I got a job fairly fast. Then again, I'm an experienced psychiatric nurse and there's not as many applicants beating down the doors to get into psych as there are to get into a critical care or even med-surg unit :) Experienced nurses are having somewhat of a hard time depending on their specialty of interest, but it's nowhere as bad as the new grads' battle.

Heard good things about Scripps, Sharp, Palomar, UCSD and the military facilities. Heard more bad than good about Kaiser--apparently it's not only hard to get into, once you are in they don't treat their nurses very well. However I've never worked for Kaiser myself so that is second-hand info I pass along--salt liberally before taking. Hopefully they'll prove me wrong.

I can't make any judgements about the pay because compared to the last state I worked in, what I'm getting now is fantastic.

[Jilly1234]

I have a few friends that work for Sharp and really love it there. I work for Scripps and they have been voted one of the top 100 places to work nationwide by Fortune magazine, now for several years. The benefits are great, and the pay is competitive. They are family friendly and allow for growth and learning. It seems like everyone there really cares about their jobs, the facility, the patients, everything. They constantly take surveys to see how happy the employees are, and the last I read it's been over 90%. Good luck!