Mount Sinai CICU is a high-acuity, high-learning unit — and the New York State Nurses Association contract makes the pay predictable in a way tech listings are not. That predictability is a strategic asset when you are planning the next ten years, not a limitation. Read the contract before the interview, not after the offer; the differentials (night, weekend, charge, preceptor) can add fifteen to twenty-two percent to the base and Mount Sinai will not volunteer the math. Our nursing members who land in Sinai's CICU almost always come in one of three ways: a strong step-down or telemetry background at a Magnet hospital, a solid two-plus years in a smaller CICU looking for higher-acuity volume, or a new grad who completed a targeted cardiac externship. If you are the third profile, the residency application matters more than the general job application — and the timing is fixed to the two annual cohorts. We help members build a portfolio narrative around a specific patient population (post-arrest, LVAD, transplant, structural intervention) rather than a generic 'critical care' story, because the CICU leadership hires against a population plan for the unit. The interview is behavioral heavy plus a peer round with two bedside RNs — that peer round is the one that decides. Your strategist will run you through STAR responses tuned to the Mount Sinai clinical ladder specifically.
Mount Sinai Health System is hiring a Registered Nurse — Cardiac ICU on the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit — Mount Sinai Hospital team, reporting to Nurse Manager, CICU. This is a full-time role based on-site in New York, NY, with base compensation between $95,000–$140,000 plus NYSNA union scale + differentials.
The CICU at Mount Sinai Hospital is a 16-bed high-acuity unit inside the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute. It serves post-cardiac-surgery, post-arrest, cardiogenic shock, LVAD, heart-transplant, and structural-intervention patients — most transferred in from the cath lab, OR, or emergency department. Nurse-to-patient ratios are 1:1 for the highest acuity and 1:2 for stable weans. The unit is Magnet-designated and unionized under NYSNA (New York State Nurses Association).
Shifts are three 12-hour days or nights per pay period (36 hours weekly), with a shift-bidding system that rewards seniority under the NYSNA contract. Handoffs follow SBAR at the bedside and are audited monthly by the unit's practice council. Interdisciplinary rounds happen at 09:00 with the CT surgery and cardiology attending teams; you are expected to lead the nursing portion by month three.
Day-to-day equipment includes Epic (Sinai runs Epic system-wide), Swan-Ganz catheters, IABP consoles, Impella devices, CRRT, and multiple vasoactive drips. New hires complete a 12-week orientation (2 weeks classroom, 10 weeks on-unit with a preceptor) and progress through the CICU competency checklist before pulling a full assignment. Externship-completed new grads may enter the Nurse Residency cohort and add an extra 4 weeks of protected learning time.
What Mount Sinai actually filters on in the peer round: whether you can talk through a real high-acuity patient story with a bedside RN's vocabulary — pressor titration reasoning, when you called the intensivist, how you handled a family conversation. Textbook answers bounce. Your strategist will run you through three real CICU scenarios drawn from placements in the last year.
Marqee's compensation team benchmarks every listing against private offer data from our placed-candidate network. Here is how the offer breaks down and where the real negotiation levers sit.
| Component | Range | Marqee read |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $95,000–$140,000 | Fixed by NYSNA step scale — years of experience determines your step, not negotiation. Verify your step credit in writing before signing. |
| Shift differentials | +12% nights, +7.5% weekends | Contract-guaranteed. A three-night-per-week schedule adds ~$14K–$18K/year on top of base and is where the real income difference sits. |
| Charge / preceptor pay | +$3.50–$5.00/hr | Available at competency milestones (typically 12–18 months in). Ask the manager which comes first on this unit. |
| Sign-on / relocation | $10K–$20K (situational) | Available when the unit is under-staffed. Sign-on has a 2-year clawback if you leave; run the math before accepting. |
| Clinical ladder | Clinician I → IV | Ladder advancement moves the base step 5–9% at each level. Portfolio submissions are twice yearly; plan the first submission at month 14, not month 24. |
| Pension + benefits | NYSNA defined-benefit pension, full medical, 24 PTO days | The pension is unusual and materially valuable — model 10-year vesting into any comparison with a non-union hospital offer. |
The single biggest mistake candidates make on this offer profile is negotiating base first and differentials as an afterthought. The math favors the reverse: over a four-year window, a well-mapped shift pattern using the night and weekend differentials outperforms a 3% base bump by roughly two-to-one on realized comp. Your strategist will benchmark your offer against three comparable placements in our network and give you a script.
Based on Marqee-network placements at Mount Sinai in the last twelve months, expect a loop with the following shape. The exact order can vary but the round types are stable.
License verification, step-scale credit review, and shift preference (days vs. nights). NYSNA determines pay, so the "salary conversation" is a step-verification conversation — bring your last-employer years-of-service letter to speed it up.
The CICU Nurse Manager will ask two behavioral questions and one clinical scenario — typically a deteriorating post-op patient. They want to hear your escalation reflex, not your textbook knowledge.
Paper case with a Clinical Nurse Specialist. Expect a Levophed + Vasopressin + Milrinone patient going into RV failure. Say your assessment out loud; the CNS is scoring your thinking, not the final answer.
The decisive round. Charge nurses and senior staff nurses vote on hires here. Answers that reference textbook ‘evidence-based practice’ without a real patient story land badly. Come with three specific patients you cared for.
You will meet the unit-based practice council (2 RNs + educator). This is a two-way round — ask them what the last three quality initiatives were and how nursing input was incorporated. Their answer tells you the unit's real culture.
Offer comes from HR with a NYSNA union welcome packet. Your strategist will walk you through step verification, differential eligibility, and pension enrollment before you sign.
Prep resources our strategists give members applying to Acute-care RN roles.
NYC-based roles our strategists are placing into this cycle. Not all clinical — but every one is a Marqee-verified live listing.
As of 2026-06-25, yes. Marqee refreshes listings weekly and pulls any role that closes. The stated validThrough date is 2026-09-01; roles at this level occasionally close earlier if a strong candidate signs.
The public band is $95,000–$140,000 base plus equity (Not applicable — union scale + differentials). Our strategists benchmark against private offer data in our network; if you are prepping for the loop with Marqee, we share the private comp benchmark on our first call.
Yes. Members get a strategist-tailored resume and cover letter for this listing, a recruiter-outreach plan for the specific team, and interview preparation for the Mount Sinai Health System loop. We have relationships with recruiters at Mount Sinai Health System.
The loop is among the more rigorous at this level of the market. Marqee members prepare with mock interviews from people who have placed candidates at Mount Sinai Health System in the last two years — see the Interview Process section above for the specific rounds.
Job listings are wish lists. If you have most of the technical requirements and a strong narrative around the gap, apply. Our strategist team can help you decide whether this is a stretch worth chasing or a role to skip in favor of a closer fit.
No. Marqee is paid by our members, not employers. We do not receive placement fees from Mount Sinai Health System or any other company; there is no incentive conflict.
A Marqee strategist runs your search — from tailored materials to recruiter warm intros to interview prep.