Nurses needed, stat: High demand and high pay make being an RN a “star profession.”
With new hospital on the way and open positions at Christus St. Vincent, RNs in high demand
It pays to be a registered nurse in Santa Fe. Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center has 114 nursing positions available at its Santa Fe hospital in specialties ranging from emergency care to behavioral health. The newcomer in the city health care sector, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, has about 75 nursing positions to fill at its Santa Fe medical center — a little less than half the number it plans to have when the facility opens in October.
Qualified nurses are hard to find, Terri Marney, Presbyterian’s chief nursing officer, and Paul Gonzales, director of human resources, said Friday. They recruited candidates in New Mexico but also filled a number of leadership positions with candidates from California, Marney said.
“They are hard to fill no matter where you’re from,” she said. “It takes a lot of training to be in those areas.”
Nurses from the start typically earn close to the median household income in Santa Fe, about $55,400. Christus St. Vincent pays entry-level registered nurses $59,000 annually; Presbyterian in Santa Fe will pay $60,860 annually, according to spokespeople for both companies. Both provide additional benefits.
“That’s baseline,” Gonzales said. “From there, based on experience and education, the more you have, the more it will go up, accordingly.”
For entry-level registered nurses in the state, the average salary in 2017 was $53,210, with experienced nurses at $69,840. The average salary for nurses in Santa Fe was $68,770, with experienced nurses earning in the high $70,000s, according to the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.
“Nursing is a high-demand and high-wage profession, they even call it a ‘star profession,’ ” said Ellen Trabka, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Northern New Mexico College in Española.
Health care providers don’t have to look far for entry-level applicants. Northern offers the two-year associate degree, which leads to a registered nurse credential and, eventually, a fouryear bachelor’s degree in nursing. Santa Fe Community College also offers a two-year degree and partners with the University of New Mexico to offer the bachelor’s degree, said Terri Tewart, the community college director of nursing education and allied health.
Classroom seats in nursing schools also are in high demand. Nursing programs at all three schools typically receive twice as many applicants than they can accommodate, their directors said.
Northern New Mexico College graduated 27 students this month, up from 12 in May 2017, Trabka said. The college typically receives 50 to 60 applicants each school year. Tewart said Santa Fe Community College, which graduates about 50 students each year, admitted 24 students last year out of 45 qualified applicants. UNM graduated 103 students with bachelor’s degrees last week and expects another 131 to graduate in August, said Carolyn Montoya, interim dean of the college of nursing in Albuquerque.
“We admit 64 students twice a year, and there are 150 to 160 that apply for those 64 positions,” she said. “Nothing is sadder to me than when we we have admission letters go out and I have students contact me and want to talk about why they didn’t get in.”
Presbyterian Healthcare Services recruits UNM graduates and partners with the university to provide practical experience for student nurses in its facilities, Montoya said. Other hospitals, including Christus St. Vincent and Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, also recruit from those schools, their directors said.
The community college, for example, invites health care providers to speak to graduates near the end of the school year, and it holds a job fair during the school year.
“All the local hospitals come to that, naturally,” Tewart said.
In addition to nursing, Presbyterian is hiring for a number of other fields, Gonzales said. The organization uses social media platforms such as Indeed, LinkedIn and Glassdoor to gather applications, he said. The medical center expects to employ as many as 350 people overall.
“One of the areas that’s hard to fill is anything in rehabilitation; physical therapy is an area we’re definitely hoping to get more candidates to talk to,” he said. “We’re also looking for cooks. That’s an area we’re struggling with as well, food service.”
New hires moving to Santa Fe to work in either hospital will have a challenge in finding a place to live. The vacancy rate among rental properties in Santa Fe and Los Alamos was less than 3 percent in summer 2017, according to the Apartment Association of New Mexico.
“Yes, we are hearing and seeing the housing shortage situation in Santa Fe, and we’re doing everything we can to mitigate that,” Gonzales said. “It’s a constant topic that we’re trying to figure out at this point.”