Traveling in Portland area

oz nurse · Mar 11, 2008

Hi, Just thought i would read this thread as im an Australian nurse wanting to relocate to Portland. Im a little shocked that nurses only get $1-$2/hr for working weekends as we get double time over here. I am wondering how this works, are nurses forced to work weekends as part of a roster? i can only imagine no one would volunteer to work weekends for such a small reward. just curious, OzN

Nightcrawler, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2008

Most hospitals here require that nurses work rotating weekends, usually every other weekend. We also work rotating holidays. My hospital system pays an additional $3 an hour for weekends.

TraumaRN1983 · Mar 15, 2008

I have been living in Portland since Jan. 2007 and I work at Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) up on the hill. If you are looking to work for a very large, academic hospital, OHSU is great. We get some of the sickest most interesting patients and I personally find that fascinating. There are a lot of job opportunities here. We have some great ICU's including a Trauma ICU, Neuro ICU, Cardiac-Surgical ICU, etc. I have heard some great things about our Cardiac-Surgical ICU (8CSI). Pay rates are good here and there is a $6.00 per hour shift differential for night shift. As far as negative things about OHSU, parking here is an absolute nightmare if you can even find a spot you usually pay about $10 each day that you park up here. I would highly encourage using public transportation or biking and living as close as possible. Also, we get an awful lot of patients of low socio-economic status with no insurance, and we get train wrecks that other hospitals don't want to deal with. Overall though, I have loved working at OHSU and we do hire a lot of travelers, especially in the summer. Hope this helps!