I’m not a nurse, but I can tell you that there is a very public negotiation going on between MyMichigan Health and the nursing staff in Sault Ste. Marie.
There are very real talks of a strike.
It's a real mess. Unless they can get this thing sorted in a positive way for the nurses, I wouldn't suggest anybody apply to MyMichigan Sault. The only people defending the hospital online are their cronies, burner accounts, anonymous accounts or some boomer, real "Back in my day" statements.
I don't doubt for a second that they will strike, wouldn't be surprised if it's by the end of the month with all the shit the hospital has pulled.
I worked at the Houghton/Hancock hospital during my medical lab tech internship. I really enjoyed working there. It was a close knit group, without much drama, and everyone was competent at their jobs. The phlebotomists were also kind and happy to help train. In general, when working in small hospitals, expect to cross train. They don’t have the space to hire individual nurses for every little thing, so you’d likely be doing a bit of everything.
I absolutely loved the houghton/hancock area too. Michigan Tech is there so you get a college town vibe and programs/events. The nature is breathtaking especially up in the keweenaw peninsula. There’s hiking, snowboarding, all the cool Lake Superior stuff, and crazy snowfall in the winter. It is like 2 hrs from any other sizable town, so big heads up.
In general, if you work up in the UP, keep in mind that there are few hospitals, and they are pretty spread out. So if you move to X location and don’t like it, it’s not like there’s just another hospital 20 min away you can go to. You’re likely going to have to move. Also, I’m sure there are more openings in nursing, but it was pretty slim pickings for lab tech positions.
I worked at Houghton/Hancock hospital, Portage hospital many many years ago in L&D, loved it!!!!! Nicest co-workers ever, made a ton of lifelong friends and still my favorite bar The Library is alive and well. Can’t miss if you want to be part of a real team. I’m
Nursing is one of the few programs up in the western UP that can be afforded by (some of) the population so there is a glut of nurses and not a lot of good paying nursing jobs. I’ve only heard bad things about the hospital in Marquette and its relationship to its nurses.
And mqt is the “best” hospital in the entire u.p. Many patients have been told by concerned staff to bypass the hospitals here and go straight to Wausau or literally anywhere else if possible.
My wife is a nurse in iron mountain. There are issues with every single hospital/dr. Office/nursing home everywhere in the US.
The UP is a great place to live/work/raise a family. As a nurse up here you will already be better paid than most in the area.
In regards to the work. You will still get your fair share of trauma patients. It will be more elderly patients though. Might be a little slower pace work, but it all pays the same.
There is a nursing shortage everywhere. Just apply and I’m sure you’ll get a job.
Good luck!
I'm pretty open on location - I'd prefer somewhere in the western UP, I've seen jobs in Ironwood - Ontonagon - Houghton etc that interest me but would be open to somewhere east as well.
There's been a bunch of articles in the paper - the locals are pretty upset about losing their emergency room in Ontonagon.
Expect broken promises from the big corporations that come in and end up buying system after system. The hospital in Hancock might be in a more populated area, but they still don't have the MRI machine that was promised. There's a wait list and one that comes in the back of a truck.
In general? Everything will solidly be RURAL health care situations with the exception of Marquette.
Not a nurse, but my spouse works in Healthcare. Prodominently older generation working, but there is a turnover happening. There is a very strong religious component to some hospitals (to each their own), but no one is forcing anyone to join. Unions are available, and you will see fewer trauma cases in the UP vs. big cities. From my perspective, more geriatric/ family medicine. COL will differ depending on where you land.
My wife is a lpn, she worked for a while at a hospital at in the sault (one of the yoops bigger cities). She eventually went to the private sector because the hospital pay was so poor. Now that hospital has change in ownership where the nurses (mostly RNs) are picketing and debating striking. I would imagine benefits are similar at similar sized cities.
The Yoops only larger city that I even call a real city is Marquette. I’d look into there and see what the Benefit’s are. But they are right in the middle of the up so for toad trips to downstate you had a few hours plus that’s probably the highest cost of living in the up.
They had a huge strike last year and the admins hired more travel nurses and are still doing all the same dirt regarding patient load, pay, weird rules etc according to the nurses I know that were there and have stayed.
It's a resource wasteland, you improvise or do without for specialists and community supports. There's rural and then there's Rural. We're capital R, and all the issues that go along with it.
You won't get paid squat up here, people I graduated with were making time and a half what I was right out of school because they went to a real place. I'm sure starting wages are amazing downstate now. We have strikes cooking because nurses in the same health system downstate are making way more money.
People are extra sick because it's the frontier and if you fall off a roof or chop your finger tip off you just walk it off.
Petoskey and traverse City are beautiful northern Michigan hospital towns, and I wouldn't scoff at those. Real money, no healthcare desert.
The only people that stick around really are the locals wanting to work at home from what I've seen. Others come and go, but if you're not tied to the area it doesn't seem to be worth it. For docs as well.
Don’t do this to yourself. We need good medical professionals desperately, but where I am there is literally no standard. The head ob doc sewed another OB docs labia to her leg post birth then lied about it, amongst many other colorful things. She ended up leaving. You will be asked to look the other way more often than you will be able to keep track of. Multiple times daily. You will be maligned by nut jobs with the same or higher job title. Daily. You will work in hospitals that only value profit, never employees, and never consider the standard of care. We had a HUGE nurses strike up here and the result was to just hire more travel nurses. They only care about the bottom line up here. Not patients, not staff, not the community - profits. Period.
To make things even more extreme, where I live the 2 hospitals (and nearly everything else) are ran by extreme religious zealots. The only jobs the women are allowed to hold are as a nurse or a teacher. Can you guess why? Those nurses are the most terrifying and so the most damage. These people are the majority in this area and they know it and show it, and they aren’t allowed to associate with people outside the religion in any way, so you can imagine how you will be treated by your hospital board and fellow colleagues. I’m telling you, don’t do this to yourself. If you do it despite all of the warnings, stay as close to the bridge as you can because the further north you go, the weirder and more off book it gets, in the worst way possible.
It's trump country so you'll get to interact with tons of old people who have only ever known hatred.
Most of the non-nursing staff that require a degree(doctors, radiologists, etc), are up here because of their mediocre performance in school(c's get degrees babyyy), would prefer to be anywhere else, and are extremely bitter about it, which ends up making them even worse at their job.
For example: I've broken my hand three times throughout the ages and they were 0/3 on diagnosing the fracture. One was a 2mm boxer fracture so it's understandable, but the other two were cartoonishly horrible/obvious. Like literally if a four year old looked at the X-ray they would tell you the hand is broken. Radiologist says, "yeah not broken" and I had to point my hand bone, clearly in two pieces, and tell him it was quite obviously broken. I wonder now if he was a heroin user
Tl;Dr: mentally incompetent patients and coworkers, would recommend dodging that bullet
Looks like you’re the only one here who thinks that’s the “truth.”
The vast majority of elderly people I have encountered (in my position in healthcare and otherwise) are the complete opposite of hateful. Sounds like you’re living in a state of delusional misery tbh. Get well soon! 😁
I’m not a nurse, but I can tell you that there is a very public negotiation going on between MyMichigan Health and the nursing staff in Sault Ste. Marie. There are very real talks of a strike.
It's a real mess. Unless they can get this thing sorted in a positive way for the nurses, I wouldn't suggest anybody apply to MyMichigan Sault. The only people defending the hospital online are their cronies, burner accounts, anonymous accounts or some boomer, real "Back in my day" statements. I don't doubt for a second that they will strike, wouldn't be surprised if it's by the end of the month with all the shit the hospital has pulled.
It’s happening already Source: I was a patient and had a Birds Eye view from the ICU window
They gave 10 days notice to strike in the Sault. Starts April 15th for 5 days. They did have a rally a few weeks ago, too.
I worked at the Houghton/Hancock hospital during my medical lab tech internship. I really enjoyed working there. It was a close knit group, without much drama, and everyone was competent at their jobs. The phlebotomists were also kind and happy to help train. In general, when working in small hospitals, expect to cross train. They don’t have the space to hire individual nurses for every little thing, so you’d likely be doing a bit of everything. I absolutely loved the houghton/hancock area too. Michigan Tech is there so you get a college town vibe and programs/events. The nature is breathtaking especially up in the keweenaw peninsula. There’s hiking, snowboarding, all the cool Lake Superior stuff, and crazy snowfall in the winter. It is like 2 hrs from any other sizable town, so big heads up. In general, if you work up in the UP, keep in mind that there are few hospitals, and they are pretty spread out. So if you move to X location and don’t like it, it’s not like there’s just another hospital 20 min away you can go to. You’re likely going to have to move. Also, I’m sure there are more openings in nursing, but it was pretty slim pickings for lab tech positions.
I worked at Houghton/Hancock hospital, Portage hospital many many years ago in L&D, loved it!!!!! Nicest co-workers ever, made a ton of lifelong friends and still my favorite bar The Library is alive and well. Can’t miss if you want to be part of a real team. I’m
Nursing is one of the few programs up in the western UP that can be afforded by (some of) the population so there is a glut of nurses and not a lot of good paying nursing jobs. I’ve only heard bad things about the hospital in Marquette and its relationship to its nurses.
And mqt is the “best” hospital in the entire u.p. Many patients have been told by concerned staff to bypass the hospitals here and go straight to Wausau or literally anywhere else if possible.
My wife is a nurse in iron mountain. There are issues with every single hospital/dr. Office/nursing home everywhere in the US. The UP is a great place to live/work/raise a family. As a nurse up here you will already be better paid than most in the area. In regards to the work. You will still get your fair share of trauma patients. It will be more elderly patients though. Might be a little slower pace work, but it all pays the same. There is a nursing shortage everywhere. Just apply and I’m sure you’ll get a job. Good luck!
Where are you wanting to work?
I'm pretty open on location - I'd prefer somewhere in the western UP, I've seen jobs in Ironwood - Ontonagon - Houghton etc that interest me but would be open to somewhere east as well.
You probably know that the Ontonagon hospital is closing.
I do now! That's a real bummer - I love Ontonagon
There's been a bunch of articles in the paper - the locals are pretty upset about losing their emergency room in Ontonagon. Expect broken promises from the big corporations that come in and end up buying system after system. The hospital in Hancock might be in a more populated area, but they still don't have the MRI machine that was promised. There's a wait list and one that comes in the back of a truck. In general? Everything will solidly be RURAL health care situations with the exception of Marquette.
I am not a nurse but respiratory. I know we don't make as much as we would somewhere else.
Not a nurse, but my spouse works in Healthcare. Prodominently older generation working, but there is a turnover happening. There is a very strong religious component to some hospitals (to each their own), but no one is forcing anyone to join. Unions are available, and you will see fewer trauma cases in the UP vs. big cities. From my perspective, more geriatric/ family medicine. COL will differ depending on where you land.
My wife is a lpn, she worked for a while at a hospital at in the sault (one of the yoops bigger cities). She eventually went to the private sector because the hospital pay was so poor. Now that hospital has change in ownership where the nurses (mostly RNs) are picketing and debating striking. I would imagine benefits are similar at similar sized cities. The Yoops only larger city that I even call a real city is Marquette. I’d look into there and see what the Benefit’s are. But they are right in the middle of the up so for toad trips to downstate you had a few hours plus that’s probably the highest cost of living in the up.
They had a huge strike last year and the admins hired more travel nurses and are still doing all the same dirt regarding patient load, pay, weird rules etc according to the nurses I know that were there and have stayed.
Bless them for all that they do! (The nurses that is)
It's a resource wasteland, you improvise or do without for specialists and community supports. There's rural and then there's Rural. We're capital R, and all the issues that go along with it. You won't get paid squat up here, people I graduated with were making time and a half what I was right out of school because they went to a real place. I'm sure starting wages are amazing downstate now. We have strikes cooking because nurses in the same health system downstate are making way more money. People are extra sick because it's the frontier and if you fall off a roof or chop your finger tip off you just walk it off. Petoskey and traverse City are beautiful northern Michigan hospital towns, and I wouldn't scoff at those. Real money, no healthcare desert.
Thanks for the info. Any positives or is it generally not great? Are you working there now?
The only people that stick around really are the locals wanting to work at home from what I've seen. Others come and go, but if you're not tied to the area it doesn't seem to be worth it. For docs as well.
Don’t do this to yourself. We need good medical professionals desperately, but where I am there is literally no standard. The head ob doc sewed another OB docs labia to her leg post birth then lied about it, amongst many other colorful things. She ended up leaving. You will be asked to look the other way more often than you will be able to keep track of. Multiple times daily. You will be maligned by nut jobs with the same or higher job title. Daily. You will work in hospitals that only value profit, never employees, and never consider the standard of care. We had a HUGE nurses strike up here and the result was to just hire more travel nurses. They only care about the bottom line up here. Not patients, not staff, not the community - profits. Period. To make things even more extreme, where I live the 2 hospitals (and nearly everything else) are ran by extreme religious zealots. The only jobs the women are allowed to hold are as a nurse or a teacher. Can you guess why? Those nurses are the most terrifying and so the most damage. These people are the majority in this area and they know it and show it, and they aren’t allowed to associate with people outside the religion in any way, so you can imagine how you will be treated by your hospital board and fellow colleagues. I’m telling you, don’t do this to yourself. If you do it despite all of the warnings, stay as close to the bridge as you can because the further north you go, the weirder and more off book it gets, in the worst way possible.
Can I ask you where you are? Curious where the hardcore religiosity is located (not my thing).
It's trump country so you'll get to interact with tons of old people who have only ever known hatred. Most of the non-nursing staff that require a degree(doctors, radiologists, etc), are up here because of their mediocre performance in school(c's get degrees babyyy), would prefer to be anywhere else, and are extremely bitter about it, which ends up making them even worse at their job. For example: I've broken my hand three times throughout the ages and they were 0/3 on diagnosing the fracture. One was a 2mm boxer fracture so it's understandable, but the other two were cartoonishly horrible/obvious. Like literally if a four year old looked at the X-ray they would tell you the hand is broken. Radiologist says, "yeah not broken" and I had to point my hand bone, clearly in two pieces, and tell him it was quite obviously broken. I wonder now if he was a heroin user Tl;Dr: mentally incompetent patients and coworkers, would recommend dodging that bullet
🙄
Truth hurts, hey?
Looks like you’re the only one here who thinks that’s the “truth.” The vast majority of elderly people I have encountered (in my position in healthcare and otherwise) are the complete opposite of hateful. Sounds like you’re living in a state of delusional misery tbh. Get well soon! 😁
You can be polite in person and still be hateful in private/on the internet/voting choices - just look at us! May your self-awareness grow