New York staff median is $98k/yrNew York staff postings that state pay run $58k/yr to $136k/yr, the middle half $81k/yr to $114k/yr, across 1300 postings. This posting states $68k/yr to $115k/yr, which is wider than that middle half, so where it sits depends on which end you are offered.
Worth asking
Can you walk me through differentials?
What should I expect for shifts, weekly hours, weekend, holiday, call, and rotation?
More questions to askFewer questions
What orientation, preceptor time, and ongoing unit support are included?
How are patient load, floating, and staffing support handled day to day?
Performs an age specific plan of care for designated group of patients using the nursing process of assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation of patient care. Collaborates with physicians and other health team members in coordinating and implementing procedures and treatments. Uses leadership skills/clinical judgment in coordinating patient care and directing/delegating activities of the patient care unit team.
Call for help the minute your patient looks off to you, not once you are sure. Needing help is not a mark against you. It puts more eyes on the patient, sooner.
“The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe.”
— Florence Nightingale
Some shifts end with you crying in your car because it all catches up at once. That is allowed. Just say out loud, to someone you trust, that it was a bad one.
Get certified in whatever you keep gravitating toward. After my wound care certification it was like new glasses: I saw what I had not known to look for.
“Willingly, had they accepted me, I would have worked for the wounded, in return for bread and water.”
— Mary Seacole
When you are unsure and everyone else is slammed, try this: if another nurse walked up and put that exact question to you, what would you tell them to do?
Someone on clinicals may say something that has you wondering if you are cut out for this. Do not take it to heart. A couple of bad days are not the profession.
Three or four years went by before the overwhelmed feeling lifted, and close to six before I felt expert at the bedside. Measure this in years, not months.
Expect the unexpected every shift and at every hour of it. The part you can learn is flexibility: managing a bit of chaos, and finding something in it to enjoy.
“But time has helped to settle the question and a trained nurse’s position now is largely what she herself makes it.”
— Isabel Hampton Robb
Most of what a dying person's family needs is to hear that nothing has gone wrong, that this is what dying looks like, and that they are caring for them well.
There will always be one more patient and one more paper. Your kid is only a toddler once. Do not give the people at home what is left at the end of the week.
“To do what nobody else can do, in a way that nobody else will do, despite all that we go through, that is to be a nurse.”
— Rawsi Williams
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Life in Lake Success, NY
Neighborhoods+Lake Success is a quiet, incorporated North Shore village situated on the western edge of Great Neck, bordered by communities such as North New Hyde Park, Thomaston, Saddle Rock Estates, and Flower Hill. The residential interior is characterized by quiet, tree-shaded streets featuring colonial-style residences and Cape Cods, with central neighborhood activity clustered around Village Park and Upland Park.
Lake Success is a quiet, incorporated North Shore village situated on the western edge of Great Neck, bordered by communities such as North New Hyde Park, Thomaston, Saddle Rock Estates, and Flower Hill. The residential interior is characterized by quiet, tree-shaded streets featuring colonial-style residences and Cape Cods, with central neighborhood activity clustered around Village Park and Upland Park.
Getting around+Lake Success provides direct automotive access via the Long Island Expressway and Northern State Parkway, both of which cut through the area and connect directly with Queens and Manhattan, located roughly 19 miles west. For rail commuters, the Little Neck Long Island Rail Road station sits under two miles away, offering train service into Penn Station in approximately 35 minutes, alongside additional rail connections at Great Neck station.
Lake Success provides direct automotive access via the Long Island Expressway and Northern State Parkway, both of which cut through the area and connect directly with Queens and Manhattan, located roughly 19 miles west. For rail commuters, the Little Neck Long Island Rail Road station sits under two miles away, offering train service into Penn Station in approximately 35 minutes, alongside additional rail connections at Great Neck station.
Outdoors+Recreational life centers heavily around the Lake Success Golf Club, which features an 18-hole golf course surrounding a scenic lake, as well as Village Park, which offers a community pool, gym facilities, and tennis and pickleball courts. Family recreation and walking paths are also found at Upland Park, while larger regional green spaces like Alley Pond Park and the Alley Pond Environmental Center sit just west across the Queens county border.
Recreational life centers heavily around the Lake Success Golf Club, which features an 18-hole golf course surrounding a scenic lake, as well as Village Park, which offers a community pool, gym facilities, and tennis and pickleball courts. Family recreation and walking paths are also found at Upland Park, while larger regional green spaces like Alley Pond Park and the Alley Pond Environmental Center sit just west across the Queens county border.
Check the commute at your shift’s start and end, upfront housing costs, and whether moving assistance must be repaid if you leave.
Living in Lake Success
Lake Success is an upscale, tranquil Nassau County village on the North Shore of Long Island that offers healthcare professionals an appealing refuge from urban intensity. Life here is distinctly anchored by a country club atmosphere, with quiet streets lined by colonial-style homes and Cape Cods framing the Lake Success Golf Club and Village Park, where residents enjoy community swimming, tennis, and pickleball. For commuting nurses, the village provides exceptional highway access via both the Long Island Expressway and Northern State Parkway, as well as rail transit into Manhattan from the Little Neck station under two miles away. Everyday conveniences are close at hand, from groceries at Northshore Farms to dining along Northern Boulevard at Greek Islands, Moonstone, and Americana Manhasset destinations like Toku Modern Asian. The trade-off is a quiet enclave with virtually no local nightlife and an inventory dominated by single-family houses, which often leads apartment-seeking medical staff to look along adjacent corridors in Great Neck Plaza or North New Hyde Park.
