Pros
Excellent child life program Wonderful chaplains and palliative care program Physician-nurse relationships are the best I have ever experienced. As well as good utilization of nurse practitioners High level of autonomy for nurses Many opportunities for learning and development Nursing councils, committees and opportunities for research Education assistance Beautiful hospital with a nail salon for patients Generous end of the year bonus They try to help with staffing with incentives Free parking this is rare for other hospitals
Cons
There are the usual cons of nursing: the EMR, weekend and holiday requirements, and the long wait before switching to days. Benefits aren't as good as they used to be and the yearly raises are only 3%. Implementation of new policies can be confusing. My main cons are specifically directed to the culture of Cook. The different units and departments in the hospital to do not get along with each other. It's day shift versus night shift. The ER has issues and complaints with the PI, and the PI complains about the floors. It is not a cohesive environment and staff from different areas can be very rude to each other. It's an "us vs them" mentality. Specifically in the PI there is a lot of lateral violence. I have seen new orientees and nurse residents get subtly bullied out of the unit and hospital. New employees leave after only a short period of time. Many of the nurses in the PI are friends with the managers and have been on the unit for 10+ years and can get away with underhanded aggression. Promotions are based on who you know. Gossip is pervasive and spreads like wildfire. Once a person decides they don't like someone and the rest go along with it. If you're not with the "in crowd" you get treated poorly.
