Oregon Health & Science University Reviews

Pros

This varies widely depending on where you work and what capacity you work in within the hospital. I worked in research and enjoyed it. Fortunately I worked with great people. Also, I enjoyed the food options there and the campus is beautiful during the warmer months.

Cons

Unless you are there 5+ years, good luck getting a parking pass. If you drive, want to park at work and are relatively new there you will need to fork $10 a day to park on the hill. I spent a fortune working there for a year. Charging employees the same high rate as anyone else is very unfortunate.

Advice to Senior Management

Make parking more realistic for employees who do not want to take the bus.

Pros

By far the best thing about working at OHSU is the city of Portland. The people at OSHU are very conscientious about their work and generally very helpful and friendly.

Cons

OHSU constantly struggles with financial concerns. It's tough to tell if that's from its pathetic upper management of the University or its paltry endowment. Either way the school seems to be perennially struggling to cut corners.

Advice to Senior Management

Catch a clue about long-term financial stability and stop trying to cure cancer in a week.

Pros

The overall atmosphere of the research side of OHSU is casual and laid back, even amongst high profile scientists.

Cons

There are VERY limited growth opportunities if you join as a postdoc.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the compensation of senior research positions competitive and have more of these positions available since in this job market, postdocs have no place to go and are valuable contributors to the science.

Pros

Gaining experience in a variety of areas for developing your career in healthcare.
Overall, great "on-service" medical teams family medicine & general medicine physician teams

Cons

Depending on the unit you work, most shifts experience with extremely difficult patient demographics (ie: constant physical, verbal and emotional abuse)

Benefits USED to be reasonable...though every year they are diminishing and changing policies, increasing deductibles, and percentage of employee payout ( for the worse), and dropping features and services.

HORRIBLE "off service" unprofessionalism from specialty service physicians.

Worst of all? Unprofessional management who is completely out of touch with the realities of day to day operations.

Advice to Senior Management

KNOW your staff and their WORK, find redeaming qualities in your staff members, encourage and develop those qualities and invest in them, you will cultivate productivity instead of firing off "nasty gram" emails by the hundreds and expecting a high moral, and better team work. Negativity breeds Negativity; it just doesn't work.

Pros

There is a good benefit package and many areas to gain experience in.

Cons

OHSU works on the "Politics First" rules. Hiring, firing, contracts, promotions, etc... are all based on who you know rather than how good you are or if you will save OHSU money. Positions posted most likely have been filled, so applying is a waste of time. Interviews may also be fake since some departments make the hiring manager interview 3 people even if they know who they will hire.

Advice to Senior Management

The "who you know rather than what you know" system must end.

Pros

great benefits, although the union is currently bargaining, so who knows what will happen. My department offers very flexible hours and I work in a more isolated environment where I am able to hide from the daily bull crap that goes on in the rest of the university.
Oh yeah, and they have a super expensive tram with no climate control.

Cons

Poor executive leadership.
Hypocritical upper level managers/division directors
People making decisions for others without considering the needs of people doing the work.
Joe Robertson's stupid emails talking about budget crisis when he owns three homes and got a $1million + bonus last year.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a freaking paycut and show some humanity. Oh, and learn how to run a business where everyone benefits, not just the people who are already high on the hog.

Pros

The benefit package is pretty nice. They contribute an amount equal to 12 percent of your salary to retirement, have excellent medical coverage, and a lot of vacation/sick time (if you aren't in the union).

Cons

There are very few parking spots and you have to wait between 5 and 8 years to even get one, then once you do you have to pay 100 dollars a month for it. Taking the bus can take way too long unless you live close and waiting at a bus stop in the rain sucks. The wages for research staff are pretty low, union wages are ok but you get a lot less vacation time.

Advice to Senior Management

Meh.

Pros

good work ethic and collegial. There are some exceptional individuals who are working on some cutting edge stuff. The University also works with local hi-tech companies and other universities such as Portland State and Oregon State. This gives an opportunity to explore areas that otherwise are hard to come by

Cons

Career growth is stunted as many folks work for long time and new openings aren't created that often. This creates a situation where years on job is given a disproportionate share of credit over creativity and dynamism. Since this is an academic medical center, the dice is loaded in favor of health care professionals and those in other careers have to live with it.

Advice to Senior Management

Help foster a learning environment

Pros

OHSU is on a hill west of Portland. It has beautiful views of the city, especially at night and the tram is a very nice way to get up and down the hill. Buses run late into the night which makes it easy to come up if you don't have a car. You also get an awesome discount on a trimet pass. The benefits are a major reason to consider OHSU. This being my first real job I was impressed by what they were offering me. OHSU is also a great learning environment and has a team atmosphere where you can ask all the questions you want and receive help. There are plenty of opportunities to advance in OHSU, either within your area or in another part of the hospital. They have every kind of program and research topic you can think of.

Cons

Be prepared to work hard, depending on your role at the University or hospital, you will be working more than 50 hours a week - regularly. Some days you will work 6 hours and others you will work 12. Science does not have a 9-5 schedule. It also takes a long time to commute. Buses run often but it takes me 10 minutes in a car and at least an hour on 2 different buses. Compensation is not the best but again this being my first job I did not expect much. If you are in the research field as I am job security could be a concern, especially in this economy.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more understanding about life-work balance

Pros

Colleagues are generally friendly. The pay is much better than the VA Hospital next door, and the benefits are great. They offer 11% contribution to your 401k, without you having to put anything towards it yourself.

Cons

The department I worked for lacked in its ability to identify problems. The physicians were very busy, very good at what they did, but seemed to not leave time to really handle organizational and non-physician staff problems.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to the organization and personnel issues within your team. Be a leader, deal directly with your team members and be decisive and clear about heirarchy and authority.