Ultrasonographer, PT Assistant, or Nurse Salaries? (job outlook, school, wages)

[greys330]

Hi there,

I'm looking into 3 possible careers (ultrasonographer, physical therapy assistant, and nursing) and I wanted to know the starting salaries for each in san francisco.

I'm also curious about the job outlook (once I graduate in 2 years) since I've heard it's difficult to find a job in nursing right out of school and rumors about the nursing shortage.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kim

[Nella925]

I'm a nursing major, but it is not hard to find a job in nursing after graduation.
I'm not sure about san francisco but I overheard one of the nursing students who were about to graduate discussing the offers she got at the local hospitals...so in san jose she mentioned $73,000 starting. So I will assume it is a little higher than that in SF.

[hiroyuki]

Hi.

I am an ultrasound technologist who is planning on moving to the SF Bay area sometime in late 2009. From what I understand ultrasound tech and nurse wages are somewhat similar. But to give you an idea, i was looking at the Kaiser Hospital system in the Bay Area (which has several hospitals throughout the Bay area and all of California) and they pay a pretty decent wage to their nurses and ultrasound techs. Around $40.00 an hour and upwards. Take a look at this link to see a sample of some of the wages paid by Kaiser hospital in the Bay area:

http://www.seiu-uhw.org/documents/kaiser/uhwcontrct2005.pdf (broken link)

Scroll to about page 129 to see Northern California wages. Remember, they also offer signing bonuses to new employees, especially nurses!

Also regarding a job shortage, yes there is a shortage of health care workers so you won't have trouble finding a job in the health care field. But, if you are a new graduate, it may be a little bit difficult to land that first job. But that doesn't mean you should give up. It means you should try even harder. Don't just apply to a few places and sit on your laurels. Apply to every single place possible. Apply to tens of hundreds of places. Make it more likely to happen, and it will happen for you!

[greys330]

Thank you hiroyuki!!! Your info. was very helpful!

[Ultrarunner]

Last year I posted a link to a newspaper story stating that new hire RN's start at 100k at SF General...

[rickca]

Actually I had been considering pursuing a career as a sonographer but decided to go for a bachelor's in business.. anyways my father in in the medical field here in northern California and he looked into it for me, basically he said it tops out around $55 per hour (after a few years experience), but he said you can do on-call shifts (which pays more if you're called in) and earn significantly more so many are making more than $100,000 per year.