UC Davis Medical Center

born2bns · Sep 5, 2019

also, what is work schedule like?

Are you guys doing 3 12hr shifts a week?

Do you guys do self-scheduling?

asbn2010nyu, BSN, RN · Sep 7, 2019

This is random, but Cedars-Sinai in LA is hiring right now, in need of experienced nurses (I moved from Seattle to LA last year to work there). They're offering a sign on bonus this week of $7500.00 with an employee referral. They offer 3 12's with option of an extra shift as 1.0, the entire extra shift is 1.5xpay, self scheduling, 2 weekends/month requirement. If you are interested, please let me know! Sorry I don't know anything about UC Davis!

**NickiLaughs, ADN, BSN, RN** · Sep 8, 2019

On 9/4/2019 at 5:22 PM, born2bns said:
Hello,
I am moving from Seattle to California and have interview scheduled for UC Davis Medical Center.
How is your working experience at UC Davis Medical center?
Is the hospital well staffed? Do you feel valued working as RN there?
I'd appreciate any comments about any of your working experience as RN at UC Davis Medical Center.
Thank you in advance!

Obviously it greatly depends on the unit. I worked in the emergency room. It was incredibly challenging. You take care of very sick patients and it isnt uncommon to be out of ratio when one of your patients turns into an ICU patient. The old timer nurses tend to get placed in triage, or team lead and tend to not be a great resource. They've been there forever.

I left as soon as I had enough experience to get a new ER job. It just felt incredibly unsafe for my nursing license.

Unfortunately I couldnt speak for other floors, but the ICU nurses seemed just as rushed when I'd come drop off my patient. Maybe other floors are better? I just would never work in the ER again.

LuckyRN80 · Nov 5, 2019

First of all, unlike other Level 1 Trauma teaching hospitals that are Magnet certified which are Nurse centered - UC Davis is very Physician centered. If you came from a Dignity hospital UC Davis will seem like a dream. UC Davis if FULL of former Dignity nurses. The only hospitals they don't get a lot nurses from (or any for that matter) is Sutter. I've met plenty of Sutter nurses and they all seem happy. One piece of advice: stay away from UC Davis's ER. I hear that there is an incredibly high turnover in that department and most of their former nurses have jumped ship to go to the PACU or to Kaiser South's ER.

Magnet lives in many forms at different hospitals and it is very easy to see why UCD lost their Magnet status before. I heard they basically did the bare minimum to get their certification back. It appears that they can only give their nurses so much leeway before a threat is posed to the comfort of their physicians. I do have to say that the staffing was very good. There are no nursing assistants, but the ICU staffing was very good. They would make the most ridiculous patient 1:1. It would be hard for any RN to go back to doing a lot of work in an ICU at any other hospital.

I worked in critical care at UCD and we got many nurse transfers from UCSF (they Bay Area's cost of living is just too high) and those nurses couldn't believe how different UCD was from UCSF. All of them remarked at how UCD seemed to be behind the game when it comes to nursing practice and policies. No one seems to know how or who changes nursing practice or policies at UCD!

Things to consider: The age of your potential coworkers - many older RNs (I'm talking WELL over the age of 50) which may make it difficult to bond with coworkers when you are in your 20's or 30's. Another thing I noticed is that it was not a "fun" crowd to work with even though people seemed to be nice. I thought it was just my unit, but from what I heard this was hospital wide (except for the ER).

Why would someone work there? The pension. That's it - the pension.