Labor & Delivery Nursing in Raleigh (Durham, Cary: insurance, chapel, how much)

[nynurse]

Hello to all,
My husband and I are investigating the possibility of relocating to Raleigh. I am a L&D nurse here in Westchester Ny and have worked in both a high risk tertiary Med Ctr and community hospital setting for 10 years. I ofcourse have loads of ??'s and would greatly appreciate any input and advice.

1. Hospitals in Raleigh or suburbs that serve maternal child population--How many deliveries per year? Tertiary or community?

2. salary scales as well as experience differential. Do you receive additional differential for specialty certification, BSN, childbirth educator etc..??

3. Do they have evening, night and weekend differentials? and if so how much?

4. How do they treat their Nurses? Do you like working there?

5. Cost of medical insurance for family coverage? are the benefits good?

6. Educational reimbursement--will they pay for you to go back to school for masters?

My husband is also a nurse--LPN and plans on going back to school to complete RN.. Do you know of any good LPN to RN programs? Do the hospitals hire LPN's?

Thank you!

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by nynurse

1. Hospitals in Raleigh or suburbs that serve maternal child population--How many deliveries per year? Tertiary or community?

I hope you are ready to hit the ground running!

Baby boom: 35 births in Wake each day

[ADVentive]

Originally Posted by nynurse

My husband is also a nurse--LPN and plans on going back to school to complete RN.. Do you know of any good LPN to RN programs? Do the hospitals hire LPN's?

My step-father did it at Johnston County community college. It's a bit of a drive, but it was a lot better for him b/c Wake Tech had a long waiting list before he could get in.

[J_Lurk]

You are asking a huge question! I can't answer a lot of it, but here is some info to get you started researching.

Hospitals in this area that have maternity wards are:

WakeMed Raleigh
WakeMed Cary
Rex
North Carolina Women's Hospital (Chapel Hill)
Durham Regional Hospital
Duke Hospital

NC Women's and Duke are major teaching facilities. NC Women's (NC Children's), Duke, and WakeMed Raleigh have the highest level NICU facilities.

If you search this board you will find multiple threads on nursing at the various local hospitals; I think some people like the atmosphere at WakeMed. There are also some discussions of nursing programs. I believe Wake Tech, Durham Tech, and Johnston Tech all have programs. UNC and Duke both have accelerated BSN programs for those with a BS. Watts School of Nursing in Durham has an interesting tuition reimbursement program if one goes on to work at Duke or Durham Regional.

[ljd1010]

Hospitals in Raleigh or suburbs that serve maternal child population--How many deliveries per year? Tertiary or community? - both, as above per previous poster.

2. salary scales as well as experience differential. Do you receive additional differential for specialty certification, BSN, childbirth educator etc..?? Cannot answer the part about childbirth educator but can about salaries in general. The salaries for RNs here are MUCH lower than in the Northeast. Even at the larger academic centers. Hourly salaries are approx $20/hr - 31/hr depending on yrs of experience. My husband took a huge cut in pay.

3. Do they have evening, night and weekend differentials? and if so how much? Yes, also varies at each institution. I'm going to say approx $3.50 - 4.50/hr

4. How do they treat their Nurses? Do you like working there? Both my husband and I are in the Duke system and we are very happy. I'm at DUMC (I'm an NP), he is at Durham Regional (RN on cardiac stepdown). I think you'll hear positives and negatives about all of the different hospitals.

5. Cost of medical insurance for family coverage? are the benefits good? Duke's benefits are excellent. Husband and I each have individual health plans - great plan, costs us each about $80/month.

6. Educational reimbursement--will they pay for you to go back to school for masters? Yes, Duke has tuition reimbursement and you can go to Duke!

My husband is also a nurse--LPN and plans on going back to school to complete RN.. Do you know of any good LPN to RN programs? Do the hospitals hire LPN's? I don't know specifically about LPN ladder programs but there are a couple of community colleges with ADN programs as well as Watts School of Nursing, UNC. Duke has accelerated BSN (for those with a BS in another field) as well as Masters and doctoral programs. Yes, there are LPN openings posted online.

I would recommend you go to each individual hospitals websites. All applications are now online. You can search job openings, post your resume and get regular updates on new openings. Don't get discouraged in you don't hear anything right away. It ook my husband 3 weeks to get a call, then had calls from 3 hospitals in 2 days.

[nynurse]

thank you for the info!!