Pros
Nurses at NRH get to know their patients well -- a benefit over many acute hospital settings, since patients typically spend two weeks or more in their rehab process. Patients are not as acutely distressed, so there is less "medical intensity" to their care. It's a small hospital, which (in the "old days" at least) allowed for healthy collaborative relationships to develop between staff members and between departments of the hospital. Patients are routinely pleased with the therapy they receive, through which they overcome serious disabilities and return successfully to near-normal self-sufficiency.
Cons
NRH is transitioning to a more streamlined management structure and is attempting to involve nurses more deeply in the care of their patients (by including nurses in team council meetings, for example). This laudable effort may lead to an improved work experience some day, but so far the transition itself has been badly bungled, and many people (including myself) have left. Like any sizable American healthcare institution, it suffers from the intrinsic dysfunction of entrenched political/business interests and the nursing profession itself. Today's nurses spend half of their time glued to the computer as data-entry clerks. Their primary responsibility is to serve the hospital legal team (so that it can be ever-ready to protect the institution from lawsuits). Regardless of their intentions, nursing managers are imprisoned in a web of regulations, protocols and practices that disallow pragmatic reality-based solutions. The nursing shortage and aging population guarantee inadequate staffing levels and dangerous conditions for the foreseeable future.
