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Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center -Biddeford

ED - Emergency Department

Compensation

Culture

Work Environment

Med Surg / Telemetry

Allied Health Professional

Certified Surgical Technologist

Registered Respiratory Therapist

Lovely hospital. The crew there was very nice.

Radiology Technician

PACU - Post Anesthesia Care

Sterile Processing Technician

Great people and department is well organized

Radiology Technologist

Labor and Delivery

Telemetry

The people were kind and pretty laid back. It is pretty busy on med surge, but nothing to overwhelming. Overtime is always available, they did lack some supplies, but overall I would go back.

PCU - Progressive Care Unit

The staffing is average, plenty of equipment, though repairs take a long time. Coworkers and support for travellers, they are amazing. Management is unhelpful, and confusing. Letters go out stating what  we should do, but retraction of mistakes comes only by word of mouth. There has been some change in management lately, so that might change.  I would return.

Surgical Technologist

Med Surg

MDs don’t listen to nurses concerns leading to several pts rapidly declining and coding. Ratios often push 6:1. Assignments are made at random without consideration and one nurse often gets a trash assignment while the rest are manageable or require very little. ED doesn’t call report and pts are sent to the floor without the staff being ready. All transfers from Sanford are claimed to be stable and almost immediately require imc or scu transfer. Several medsurg nurses are given cardiac drips without experience administering before. IMC pts will be deemed floor appropriate too soon if ratios have to be pushed. Consistently called off for low census. But overall staff is friendly.

Intermediate Care

Was a traveler here working charge for about 14 months with breaks in between contacts. Bed management started sending out medsurg 6:1 nurses step down level pts on cardiac drips and insulin drips to travelers not acls or tele trained. Additionally they would send medsurg pts to nurses in L&D who specially left medsurg because of this issue. Upon speaking with management several times no changes were made. Unsafe practices here unfortunately led to my cancellation of a contract.

Administration issue

all of maine health (smhc, MMC, etc.) has recently decided that the only holidays you are paid time and a half for are christmas day and thanksgiving day, which has aggravated me beyond belief. if you get called off, even on a scheduled day and EVEN as a traveler, you do not get paid and will have to use PTO (& if you’re a traveler, i’m assuming you’re screwed there). I was staff but i feel for these travelers. incentive is an extra $20 an hour currently for extra shifts. definitely check your time cards over each week as i’ve noticed random discrepancies. i have a lot of grievances with this place however i will say that some of the managers ie float pool are gods sent from heaven and make me not want to leave. she will have your back. others, however, not so much. i do love my coworkers and they will be the ones to carry you through the day, great teamwork through the RNs overall. they are the reason i’ve stayed so long. i will also add that i’ve seen many travelers leave and come back to the same unit and some even sign on for the bridge program to staff (MS3) so there is something to be said.

so-so from a staff RN you

I have never seen so many armchair doctor's. Under no circumstance should these hacks be assessing their patients/writing orders from the comfort of their office. 

The PA's are even worse.  They don't know what they are doing and compound their mistakes with arrogance.

Not good

Ultrasound Technologist

Thank you, Next.

Home Health

TECHS: If I could say one good thing about this place is that techs are literally amazing. They do almost everything for you. They’ll do EKGs, straight sticks, splints, vitals, BG, transport, etc (almost everything a nurse does except give meds).

SCHEDULE: They are not flexible with scheduling. For example, I requested to have blocked dates, mind you my recruiter did not put it in the contract when I specifically asked for this, and they ended up schedule me every other day pretty much. When asked if they could fix it, they would say they would look into it and you never hear back. They will also make changes to your schedule with a notice either the day before or the day of. One time they switched my shift from one location to another so the manager could work in that specific location because "she lived closer". She messaged me this through epic chat and just told me to “let me know if I read the message” (mind you she didn’t ask she just told me that change is being made).

ASSIGNMENT: Travelers get the short end of the stick of course but they will 95% of the time give you zone 1 (where you get up to six high acuity pts with no assistance and no help while in other zones they have 2 or 3 pts) or EDAP, where all the psych pts are. When you say something to charge they say "you don't have an option". They are supposed to keep a log of who has worked on each zone so it can be fair but per charge "it hasn't been updated in months" so they still end up putting you where they want. 

BREAKS: No one ever gets a lunch break. In my 13 weeks I probably got 2 lunch breaks because no one covers you or wants to watch over your zone. 

ENVIRONMENT: I don’t know if I thought it was etiquette but not a single charge or ANM or manager ever introduced themselves to me. I understand I'm a traveler but I've witnessed them be that way towards their new staff as well (which probably explains why so many GNs leave before their training is done).  They’ve had management change probably three times in my 13 weeks I was there. There are a lot of “cliques” there. I wasn’t involved with they drama but it seemed like certain people got away with things that others didn’t… but I guess that is everywhere.

POLICIES/CHARTING: There aren’t many protocols that are set and stone there. I never noticed a single nurse chart an assessment (even a focused assessment) or even vitals sometimes on their patients. When I was orienting they said that you are supposed to have vitals q15 for level 2 acuity but I can tell you no one charts it (if they even do it which is rare). There are no charting instructions for big things like strokes, procedural sedations, STEMIs, codes, etc. You kind of have to figure it out on your own.

MISCELLANEOUS: Most of the people that I’ve seen renew are usually night shifters. It seems like it is pretty chill at nights (I can’t speak from experience since I worked days) and since both facilities are small there aren’t many patients (the sanford locations sometimes will have one or two patients and biddeford will have more). When you sign the contract they say 4 to 5 pts per nurse but you can go up to six easily.

Overall, not a good experience

If no stars were a rating, it would be this hospital. I can only speak for the ER. I have no idea about the rest and won't pretend to. If you are not in ER, I suggest you seek other reviews. My ER travelers... don't. Of course, just like every place we have all been, there are good and bad co-workers, providers, etc.  I did 14 weeks. 
14 because my approved time off came with a one-week add-on.  I worked nights. On countless, almost every occasions, I came into a 1-5 or 1-6 ratio; the most i can for 3 hours period of time was 1-9!!!! I constantly picked up a mess for hours at the beginning of every shift.  Here are a few examples of "what we are doing here"  moments I had while on assignment ... note it is far from limited to this.  Stroke alert... 30 mins to CT and 45 mins later as I come on to shift ... still NO blood sugar, vitals, or NIH done, No neuro assessments. 


 Confirmed head bleed. No vitals and not even on the monitor for 4 hours, waiting for transport to a high level of care, one IV. Bright lights on, NO neuro assessments at all! 


I blocked a room for an EMS patient; it sounded like a 
 head bleed. I had to put in a hall bed until the space was empty / clean. Told the charge all the things.. she tried to put a guy who " overdosed" on THC. ( no friend, I don't think, so he can wait on the stretcher and in the hall). 
Guy with the low mag, 3 grams ordered. 1st one hung before my shift ...not a single cardiac assessment. No assessment ever!!! 

One nurse went to give insulin to a patient whose blood sugar hadn't been taken in 4 hours. ( Think you wanna recheck that friend?) More than 100 points lower! 

Go to patient's room, because the monitor was alarming. find 2 other travlers in the room. Nana looks hypoxic; this is not anyone patient that is in the room at the time. Staff RN walks in and walks out " you guys look like you have it"  patient hypotenisve, Tachcardic, and Tachpena. Boarding on night two there and still no one had gotten a clean urine. She had no idea the lady was showing signs of spesis. Her core temp rectal was 95. Also did not know what a BNP was. 

Lots and lots of pysch, drugs and alchol. This actually 2 campuses. Bidderford and Sanford. Both have lock down pysch units. Many times people in hall beds for days. It was almost nightly that someone had to be placed in restraints. 

There are nice people there, if fact i still keep in contact with some. There are some really nasty people there who eat their young and work their techs like dogs.  There is a server lack of education for newer nurses, who are now teaching even newer ones. Afain there are nice/ good people who work here. Their hospital has failed them. This hospital absoulty will put your license in danger.

Worst hospital I have ever worked at!

House Supervisor

Southern Maine Health Care-Biddeford Medical Center in Biddeford, ME is not nationally ranked in any specialty.

Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center -Biddeford

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$26-39/hr