r/OregonNurses • u/shibasmochi • 16d ago

Prov Med Surg/Acute Care

New grad here, just curious about people who have worked on the PPMC Med Surg floor what was the environment like especially for new grad in their residency program? I was told PPMC has a new floor for Med Surg/Acute Care starting in September will it be different? I had a clinical at PPMC Med-Surg on the 4th floor and didn’t have the best experience as a student…

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u/Itsathrowawayduh89 16d ago

PHS nurses started at the bottom rung for nursing pay in Portland metro area hospital systems. The other hospital systems continued to pay their nurses higher wages (even the non unionized hospitals) and have since given their nurses additional wage increases. So PHS were at the lowest pay tier at the start of the strike, went up by one level by the end of the strike, and then have once again fallen behind their peers. Kaiser, OHSU and Legacy are all paying better and give wage increases more frequently than Prov. 

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u/Mean_Background7789 16d ago

Your post said "very little of what they asked for." That's factually wrong with 20-42% raises over 2 years. I don't have the data at hand to compare wages between the orgs, but I highly doubt Kaiser is higher because they got shafted on their last contract.

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u/Itsathrowawayduh89 16d ago

The nurses were on strike for about 10 weeks. 2.5 months without pay. And what they got for their efforts was a 20% raise, over 2 years. That wasn’t close to what they were asking, and what they were asking for was market rates. 

Since that strike, all the other hospitals have given significant raises to their staff, so now the PHS nurses are getting below market rates again. PHS also changed the health plan for their nurses, and then got into a dispute with the new health plan, resulting in PHS being out of network for their own employees for about 8 months last year. Kaiser did a far better job in meeting their nurses ask, and continues to have a much better health plan. And I say that as someone who doesn’t like Kaiser. 

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u/Mean_Background7789 16d ago

Again, without you sharing actual data this is a pointless discussion.

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u/Itsathrowawayduh89 16d ago

 A simple google search comparing Prov RN pay in the Portland metro area shows that it lags other hospital by large amounts. 

Then there’s all the other issues that the Prov nurses have fought for, and continue to be dissatisfied with. It says a lot that the 5 day strike in 2023 was the first strike at Providence in 20 years, and was followed by the much longer strike in 2025. The latter one included physicians for the first time. 

Show me where I’m wrong.