St. Joseph - Marshfield Critical Care Internship

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Hi All,

Are there any past or current Critical Care interns that are willing to share their experience during their time at St. Joseph's Hospital? Any thoughts about Marshfield itself as a place to live?

Thanks,

Scott

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Specializes in Cardiac, Hospice, Float pool, Med/Peds.

I was raised in Marshfield and worked at Saint Joe's for 5 years on the cardiac floor. The hospital is great and you will learn a lot.

Now, Marshfield is nothing great; especially for single people. It is a small town and we lost a lot of Dr.'s because there is not much to do...

I liked the little town and the schools were great for my kids... You will learn a lot, but there is not much else to do...

Good luck in what you decide.

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Thanks for your reply. During my interview and subsequent tour, I really felt like it was a top notch hospital and a potentially great learning experience. I'm glad you can confirm that. I've mostly lived in bigger cities though, so it will be a bit of a change.

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Well, I accepted the position and will be starting on March 5th. The opportunity is a great one so I'm not going to pass it up just because Marshfield is a little "rural" :)

If anyone has any advice on where to look for a nice apartment or rent, please send me a PM.

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Specializes in Cardiac.
Well, I accepted the position and will be starting on March 5th. The opportunity is a great one so I'm not going to pass it up just because Marshfield is a little "rural" :)

If anyone has any advice on where to look for a nice apartment or rent, please send me a PM.

Hey Scott!

You decided not to do the Critical Care Internship at OSUMC?

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Hi All,

Are there any past or current Critical Care interns that are willing to share their experience during their time at St. Joseph's Hospital? Any thoughts about Marshfield itself as a place to live?

Thanks,

Scott

*** I graduated from that program. It's a good program and they will teach you to be a critical care nurse. However I can not recommend Ministry (the system St. Joe's belongs to) as an employer. The pay is much lower than comparable Wisconsin hospitals, about $10-12 / hour less than other similar hospitals in Wisconsin for new grads and benefits are poor and vastly over priced. For the last 7 months or so patient census in the critical care has been very low, this leads to 3-5 ICU nurses getting laid off each shift. This has been going on so long that people have used all their PTO and are not getting their full paychecks. This has resulted in low unit moral and and a highly critical eye towards newly hired nurses.

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PMFB-RN,

Can you tell me how long ago you went through the program? Were you in the CCU or SICU? Can you expand a little bit about the 3-5 nurses being laid off each shift and the low unit morale? That doesn't quite seem fair if you are committed/required to be a 0.8 or 0.9 and the hospital doesn't hold up it's part of the deal.

I certainly agree that the pay for new grads is not at the top end at St Joe's. I am starting at a bit over $22/hr. But I don't think there are any hospitals in Wisconsin that pay $10-12 more an hour for new grads. Even in Minneapolis where new grads are paid more than most of the rest of the country, they are only at $31/hr.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

Sent you a PM

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mnscotti, how has your experience been? I have an interview scheduled this week and although their informational packet provides a lot of information, it would be wonderful to hear from an insider on the experience.

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I worked for Ministry for 7 years...Did an internship in CCU, though that was before the nurse residency program. All I can say is that the RN's in CCU at that time were not very nice. The learning environment was poor, and if there were things I didn't know I was made to feel like an idiot if I didn't "get it" right away by a few of them. Mind you, this was in 2005, but I have heard from others that the climate there is poor.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I worked for Ministry for 7 years...Did an internship in CCU, though that was before the nurse residency program. All I can say is that the RN's in CCU at that time were not very nice. The learning environment was poor, and if there were things I didn't know I was made to feel like an idiot if I didn't "get it" right away by a few of them. Mind you, this was in 2005, but I have heard from others that the climate there is poor.

*** The climate there (St.Josephs) is toxic. The residency is great and very effective. Not long ago They fired all their nurse managers and assistant nurse managers and made them re-apply for their jobs. The SICU nurse manager was sent to be assistant NM of 3N and a med-surg NM was brought down to be NM of both SICU & CCU. She has zero critical care background. The pay is very low and getting LC (low cencused, i.e. laid off) is very, very common. Nurses there frequiently have no vacation as the must use it to keep their pay checks up to normal due to all the LC. They will work you for 4 hours, LC you for 4, then call you back for 4. The pay is very low, about $21-22/hour for new grads. There are no preformance raises. Everybody gets a raise (usually 1-3%) or nobody does. Raises have been frozen 3 of the last 6 years or so. Benifits are terrable and expensive. The health insurance is very expensive and covers little. Not to mention that the hospital has a contract with Security Health (owned by the physicians of Marshfield Clinic) that they will not cover any sort of family planning. This results in mature couples who have no desire to have more children having more then the employees are told their health insurance sucks cause we are "heavy users" of it.

I worked there full time for years and continue to work there part time. When I found a much higher paying job at another non-Magnet hospital I was thrilled.

All that said you WILL be well trained. I can hardly think of a better place to learn to be a real ICU nurse. It is the ideal place to spend your first 2-3 years and a new nurse to gain skills, then move on to a place that will appreciate you. The residency requires a 2 year contract that starts after the 7 month residency. Last I heard the pay off was $15 non prorated. That said I know plenty of people who walked away from the contract without paying it off and nothing was done.

If you want to get a spot in the residency stress your ties to the local community and never mention if you ever want to go on to grad school.

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Do they pay shift differentials at this hospital?

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