St. Louis New Grad

[jamieo421]

The question is: SSM, BJC, or Mercy?!? I graduate this December with my BSN and have been shadowing at different hospitals, trying to figure out where I want to work when I graduate. I know at least one hospital system starts hiring new grads up to 6 months before graduating so I'd like to figure it out soon! I have been comparing the work environments, pay, benefits, etc, and I cannot figure out which one I should apply at! I want to work in the ED when I graduate and so far, each time I shadow, I get the feeling of "I really think I could work here!" at every location. Does anyone have experience or know anything good or bad about working at these hospitals? Any and all advice is appreciated!

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

You should apply to all of them (as well as others) since you aren't guaranteed an offer at any of them.

[Davey Do]

All are quality hospitals with good reputations, jamie. There are others in the Illinois metro east that are also pretty good at which to work. I've work at two of them.

My wife Belinda is a medical nurse on IMU, she works at a BJC affiliate, and speaks highly of it. Of course, there's good and bad with everything.

I second JadedCPN's advice in not counting non-hatched chickens and utilizing the shotgun analogy when going for a job: Shoot at everything and you're bound to hit something.

Good luck!

[Nunya, BSN]

It's been several years but I worked at Children's from 97-02 and loved it! I was in the NICU staffing was great. Starting pay wasn't as good as I had hoped but since I wanted to move from a smaller IL hospital to a big NICU I was willing to take it. There were plenty of opportunities for OT.