SIU Medicine

Days can mean Plastics and Vascular work—wound and dressing care, OR coordination, on-site only—or Charge Nurse leadership in the General Internal Medicine FQHC and Decatur Multispecialty Clinic, where you assist faculty, residents, and students and may travel to satellite sites. If you are still finishing licensure, the Clinic Nurse - Trainee path is built for someone who can become an Illinois RN within six months of start; one employer-provided trainee rate sits near $29.36 an hour. Charge Nurse listings in the Springfield area show an estimated band around $72,000–$84,000 a year. Benefits show up often in reviews—health insurance, PTO, paid holidays, tuition reimbursement—and Decatur’s cost of living runs about 12% below the national level with short average commutes. What you should weigh honestly: staff still call pay low next to competitors, describe limited upward mobility, and split on whether the culture feels collaborative or strained. Roughly half of reviewers would recommend the place. If academic clinic work and teaching-adjacent teams matter more to you than top-of-market wages, this is a concrete place to look.

CARE Award recognizes staff, clinicians, and teams for compassionate patient experience; public thanks frame nurses as essential front-line care staff.