Ask a Travel Nurse: Can I switch specialties while Travel Nursing?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

I have been an ICU nurse at a small hospital for almost four years now and I’m very interested in Travel Nursing. If I were to travel, would I only be able to take ICU positions? Or could I possibly get OR, PACU, or Cath lab job with no previous experience in those areas?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

If you wish to work in any other areas while traveling I always encourage people to get that experience before they hit the road.

This is due to the fact that there will be little to no opportunities to cross-train while you are traveling.

However, you are in a specialty that does allow a little bit of wiggle room. I would say that you could possibly take an assignment in an area like PACU, since the skills are essentially the same. You would also likely be very able to take an assignment in a lesser acuity area such as telemetry or med-surg.

In doing so, you would want to make sure that the facility is well aware of your background during the interview process.

Now for areas that are specialized like OR or the Cath lab, I’m afraid you would have to have experience before embarking on a career in travel. Those are areas that require a separate set of skills that you just do not come by in the ICU.

I once toyed with the notion of going to the Cath lab as a full time staff nurse and could not even find a position that did not already require experience.

While I know that this may not be the answer you were hoping for, I hope it helps!

David

Snap it. Post it. Hashtag it. And you could win a year subscription to Amazon Prime!

Trivia Question: Who are three great photographers?

Answer: Ansel Adams, Annie Leibowitz, and … YOU!

Many Travel Nurses are major shutterbugs. And who can blame them? With all that time spent in new, exciting locations you are bound to see all kinds of picture-worthy sights.

A new contest hosted by pet friendly Travel Nurse agency, Medical Solutions, allows you the chance to share your epic snapshots, and you might even win a prize for your efforts.

All you have to do to enter is snap a picture on Instagram and post it with the hashtag #medicalsolutions — it’s super simple and you can enter as many times as you like. You can share photos of majestic sunsets, lazy days at the beach, trips to your new favorite restaurant, your animals, your new friends — anything you want.

Three lucky Travelers will each win a one-year subscription to Amazon Prime, which nets you access to thousands of books and music titles, as well as thousands of movies and TV shows you can stream instantly, plus free two-day shipping on Amazon Prime items.

Click here to learn more about the Insta Travel Instagram Contest for Travel Nurses.

And, happy picture-taking, everyone! It should be super fun to see what develops.

Tune in on July 16th as Katie Couric celebrates nurses on her show, “Katie.”

Whatever time zone you’re currently in, you should definitely tune in to today’s “Katie” on ABC, as host Katie Couric celebrates nurses, with a show themed “Celebrating Nurses.”

“Katie” is a topical daytime talk show hosted by award-winning journalist and television personality Katie Couric.

According to the show’s website, on July 16th, “Katie salutes nurses across the country. Meet the heroes who heal us, inspire us, and save our lives.”

The episode is expected to feature Carolyn Jones, director of The American Nurse, as well as several nurses featured in that film and an expert on modern healthcare and nursing. It was reportedly filmed two months ahead of its air date.

The show’s tagline is “Talk That Matters,” and that is so true in the case of recognizing and celebrating all of the hard work, sacrifice, compassion, and dedication displayed by nurses like you every single day. What you do as a nurse matters to so many people, and it’s pretty cool to see that recognized on national television.

“It was a team that got me better, but the nurse got me through it,” says one of the featured guests in the preview video (check it out below!).

If you can’t tune in today as Katie Couric celebrates nurses, visit katiecouric.com to watch later.

Look into My Crystal Ball … Or, just check out this infographic to learn more about the future of nursing!

The fine folks at The Nursing Bible recently shared an infographic with us that is titled, “Nowhere But Up: The Future of Nursing.” We thought that our Travel Nursing Blogs readers would be very interested in checking it out, so we are sharing it here.

Travel Nursing is an industry intricately linked with the nursing shortage, and as you can see below, the infographic touches on projections for RN jobs, projecting a 36% rise in demand for RNs in hospitals by 2020. It also details why more nurses are and will continue to be needed, as well as projections for salary growth, and lots more interesting information.

Check it out!

Source: TheNursingBible.com

Life’s a beach with this lively list of summer reading for Travel Nurses.

Of course you’ll make great friends on assignment, and maybe you even brought your pet along, but aside from them, a good book can be a Travel Nurse’s best friend on assignment. Whether you go old school or rock the e-reader, there’s nothing better than digging your feet into the sand while you dig into a great book!

Read on for Travel Nursing Blogs’ list of great summer reading for Travel Nurses:

Rambling Stacks — Books About Travel

The Vacationers — Emma Straub’s humor and observation are the backbone for this novel about the Post family’s two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with extended family and friends, in celebration of a 35th wedding anniversary and a high school graduation.

Blue Highways — In 1978, William Least Heat-Moon, recently separated from his wife, hit the road … America’s smaller, off the beaten path roads, to be exact. His 13,000-mile journey includes tales of the many people and cultural experiences he encountered along the way.

Land of Love and Drowning — This family saga tells the tale of three generations of a family in the Virgin Islands against the gorgeous backdrop of the Caribbean. The magical tale is the debut book from Tiphanie Yanique.

Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America — Amazon calls this new release, “A cross-country hitchhiking journey with America’s most beloved weirdo.” Fans of this jack of all trades (writer/director of films such as Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and Serial Mom) will love his wry, honest on-the-road observations.

Tomes Related to Nursing

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot explores the personal story of Henrietta Lacks, a black American woman lost to cancer at age 31 in 1951, whose tissue was taken without her consent or knowledge. The sample ended up being the first human cells to survive in culture and were used widely in research.

Notes on Nursing — First published in 1859 by Florence Nightingale, this oldie-but-goodie is a classic and surprisingly relevant to modern nurses.

Final Gifts — Subtitled “Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying,” this moving classic from Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, mines years of experience and provides insight on caring for terminally ill patients.

The Year of Magical Thinking — This memoir provides a hauntingly beautiful perspective from the family of a sick patient. The great Joan Didion explores her grief and emotions following her husband’s death while she’s also caring for her severely ill daughter, Quintana. Blue Nights is another excellent Didion read, about her daughter’s subsequent death.

Books on the Big Screen

This is Where I Leave You — As hilarious as it is raw and grim, this novel details the Foxman family’s reunion on the heels of the patriarch’s death. The September 2014 film’s cast includes Jane Fonda, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Connie Britton, Rose Byrne, Adam Driver, and Dax Shepard.

The Descendants — Against the beautiful Hawaiian backdrop, Matt King tries to reconnect with his daughters after his wife’s serious boating accident. The 2011 Alexander Payne film starring George Clooney and Shailene Woodley, was nominated for many awards, and won a Golden Globe for Best Picture and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, among others.

The Fault in Our Stars — Also starring Shailene Woodley, the blockbuster adaptation of this book was released early this summer. John Green’s book tells the funny, moving story of Hazel and Gus, two teens who meet in a cancer support group.

Gone Girl — Gillian Flynn’s addictive thriller focuses on the marriage of Nick and Amy Dunn, and her disappearance. The suspense hits the big screen this fall, with a cast including Ben Affleck, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tyler Perry.

A Few More Page-turners

The Interestings — Author Meg Wolitzer follows 6 friends from their teen days at summer camp in the 70s through middle age, as they deal with talent, art, money, and friendships.

One Summer: America 1927 — From the first “talking picture” to Charles Lindbergh’s legendary nonstop Trans-Atlantic flight, the summer of 1927 was a hotbed for activity. Author Bill Bryson illuminates these and other events regarding Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Calvin Coolidge, Ruth Snyder, and more, from the summer of ’27.

The Swan Gondola — Author Timothy Schaffert spins a romantic fable set against the lively backdrop of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, a world of mystery and magic with a zany cast of characters.

Now, what are you currently reading? Please share in the comments if you have anything to add to our list of summer reading for Travel Nurses.

Ask a Travel Nurse: What’s the normal salary range for Travel Nurses?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

I am a junior in high school and want to learn more about becoming a Travel Nurse. Can you tell me what the normal salary range would be? Thank you so much!

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

I’m sorry, but I am not able to give you a “normal” salary range because there are just too many variables.

Pay rates for nurses in general can vary drastically depending on your specialty, the area of the country in which you work, and even the demand at any given time. It can also depend on whether you work 12-hour shifts (36 hours/week) versus 8-hour shifts (40 hours/week).

As an example of this, the U.S. News and World Report website (http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/salary) states that “the median salary for a registered nurse was $65,470 in 2012. The best-paid 10 percent of RNs made more than $94,720, while the bottom 10 percent earned less than $45,040.”

So as you can see, there is about a $50K difference between the highest and lowest paid nurses in the profession.

Get Out the Map: New graduates can prepare for a Travel Nursing career while they gain important hospital experience.

You’ve just graduated, which means you are total rock star. Congrats! But if you’re interested in a Travel Nursing career, you will need to establish 1-2 years of recent hospital experience prior to your first contract.

Experience is required because Travel Nurses often receive very brief, hospital-specific orientations and you are expected to be well-skilled and hit the ground running.

For your benefit, as well as that of the hospital and patients, you want to have the right degree of experience when you begin your career as a Travel Nurse. You definitely don’t want to jump the gun and potentially put your license and your patient outcomes in jeopardy. I know you are so excited to get started, but you should be wary of an agency that tries to send you out on assignment before you have the right amount of experience. The standard used to be one year, but now most experts recommend closer to two.

So, you are probably working on getting a job, in order to attain this experience, but beyond that, what can you do in the meantime to prepare for a career in Travel Nursing? Here are some tips on preparing for Travel Nursing for New Graduates:

Do Your Homework

Use this time to research the Travel Nursing industry. Learn all of the ins and outs, and then when you have the right level of experience, you will be locked and loaded for hitting the road!

• Search terms here on Travel Nursing Blogs to find past blogs on travel-related topics you are wondering about. Although we have covered nearly everything, our resident Ask a Travel Nurse expert, David Morrison RN, is an excellent resource if you have any questions you can’t find answers to.
• Gypsy Nurse and Blue Pipes Blog are a couple of other excellent Travel Nurse-related blogs. Also, you should consider joining a forum like Healthcare Travelbook or searching Facebook for relevant groups related to the industry.
• Now is also a good time for you to start looking for a recruiter who is a great fit for you at a company that offers the benefits that align with your needs. Start with Travel Nursing Central and/or Highway Hypodermics’ respective annual rankings of Travel Nurse Agencies. From there, check out a few websites to see what some of the top-ranked agencies offer, comparing their benefits/bonuses/etc. to your needs, and start making phone calls. The right recruiter/company is hugely important to your success and even if you don’t have the experience to travel yet, it is never too early to establish a relationship with them and get in their pipeline.

Consider Your Specialty

There is a higher demand for certain specialties in Travel Nursing, so if you are set on traveling it’s a good idea to consider that when choosing yours. Of course, there is a need for all specialties and ultimately you should follow your gut when choosing. It’s just that some may make you more marketable as a traveler than others.

Some highly sought specialties include:

• Labor & Delivery
• ER
• OR
• ICU
• CathLab

Build Yourself Up Professionally

• When you start working, work hard and do your best to satisfy all of your curiosity at every turn. If you are unsure about something, always ask. This is how you gain knowledge and become a stronger nurse! Learning and mastering EMR systems is also a distinct advantage for a prospective Traveler to have.
• You should also work to gain the appropriate certifications for your specialty, which will, again, only serve to make you more marketable and educated. You can usually earn them as you work through your employer.
• Put together your resume now. You can continue to add to it, but get the basics of it and formatting down now. As you encounter people in your work, keep in mind who might make good references for you in the future.

Please share in the comments if you have any more tips or information on Travel Nursing for new graduates.

Ask a Travel Nurse Expert: How can I learn more about specific Travel Nurse Agencies?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

How can I learn more about specific Travel Nurse Agencies?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

I always encourage people to go about investigating companies in several ways.

First, always check them out on the travel forums and see what other travelers may have to say about them. But, you should keep in mind that you’ll are likely to find good and bad things about every company out there. What you want to look for are patterns. Some great websites, other than here at travelnursingblogs.com, are ultimatenurse.com, travelnursingcentral.com, allnurses.com, and the Delphi forum for traveling professionals (go to delphiforums.com, look for the box on the right that says “Explore existing forums”, type in “travel nursing” and the top result is a group called Travel Nurses and Therapists).

Pan Travelers is also another good site with a forum and you can also join Healthcare Travelbook (healthcaretravelbook.com), which is a sort of Facebook style place for travelers, which also has a forum.

You can either search the posts for a particular company or sign up and seek out other members who might have had experience with the company by a post of your own.

Another way to gauge a travel company can be by the amount of time they have been in business (not all “young” companies are bad, just as not all companies that have been in the business awhile will be good). Longevity just says that they have been doing this awhile and should have most of their ducks in a row (and it also means you should be able to find out more about them on the forums).

Also look and see if they have a Better Business Bureau rating. Not all companies are accredited by the BBB (most might not be) but even if a company is not accredited by the BBB, they may have a rating and you can see if anyone has ever filed a complaint against them.

Finally, I recommend simply typing the company name into a search browser with the word “complaint” or “review”. This sometimes yields some pretty interesting results. In doing so for the company you mentioned, I came across this page:

http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Worldwide-Travel-Staffing/reviews

I hope this helps.

David
david@travelnursesbible.com

Highway to the Danger Zone: As a nurse, have you ever been in the middle of a natural disaster?

Nurses do what they do because they want to help people. But there is an added dimension when a natural disaster hits the area you also reside in — whether you are on assignment in a new location or it is your hometown.

Whatever the cause — tornado, flood, hurricane, wild fire, tsunami, etc. — providing care and comfort to a community during and throughout the aftermath of a natural disaster can be especially challenging. A nurse must remain strong, managing his or her own fear for their own welfare, as well as the welfare of their family, patients, and colleagues.

A brand new nurse “and I mean brand new — took NCLEX and got my license last week-type new” recently shared her story on AllNurses.com of getting through a night of severe weather in a small hospital in northeast Nebraska. The area, covering an approximately 60-mile zone from Stanton, NE, to Sioux City Iowa, was ravaged by twin tornados and other severe weather this June. The small town of Pilger, Nebrask, essentially wiped off the map, but for debris, was just one decimated example of the storm’s ferocity.

It was during this storm that this brand new nurse, who posted under the handle angie2927, was doing some training at her new job. Tornado warnings are common enough in the region, so she wasn’t too alarmed at first. But then, as hospital staff were called in to prepare for casualties, she writes, “Suddenly, things started getting serious.”

“The more experienced nurses knew what they were doing and what their assignments were,” she continued. “Some went to the scene to conduct triage, others were preparing treatment rooms, and still others had to ensure that proper care was being taken of the patients already in our facility. I ended up in the front entryway helping families who didn’t know where their loved ones were or what their condition was.”

The new nurse was desperately worried about her own children, who were at daycare. She writes about comforting and caring for others while worrying about her own loved ones. Even though she’s very new on the job, this nurse shared that she had already learned about a very hard part of nursing:

“Nurses are the people who take care of other people’s families even when they are desperately worried about their own.”

Have you ever been caught in natural disaster? What did you do to provide care and comfort as a nurse while also experiencing the situation on a personal level? Share your stories of bravery in the comments!

Ask a Travel Nurse Expert: How do I get the Travel Nurse housing I want?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

I just took my first travel assignment and I love it, but my company has me in a motel and not the efficient little apartment that I was promised. How do I keep this from happening and get the housing I want in the future? Also, have you ever taken an assignment and found out it wasn’t quite what you imagined?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

Yes, I have been on an assignment where everything was not as expected; in fact, I have been on a few.

The measure of a travel company is not when things are going great, just the opposite. The true gauge of a travel company comes when you see how they react to problems with your assignment. If you have not already, voice your frustration with your company’s housing coordinator and make sure you also let your recruiter know what is going on. Your recruiter is your advocate within the company and if you were promised an apartment, and one is not provided within a timely manner, then you do have one easy decision … NOT to use that company again.

I use several companies for my travels, but the one I use most has always provided great housing. The trade off? I was never the highest paid traveler in the unit, but what did I care? I was earning a decent wage that allowed me to pay all my monthly bills and have money left over for fun. Being that I always went to locations that I wanted to see, I felt very blessed to have at least three months to explore the area, make a living, and have a nice place to lay my head. What more could I ask for?

However, I do know that many travelers are what I term “paycheck” travelers, who are all about making the MOST take home pay (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). But for me, it’s about the adventure, not the money. You sound as if you do not fall into the “paycheck” category, but do want a nice place and have some concerns about being paid fairly.

As for your present situation, raise hell, give them a chance to make it right, and then choose where you go from there. If an apartment is in your contract, then likely, technically (or more precisely, legally), they have breached the contract (if it was in your contract, you can even point this out to them). I cannot give legal advice as I am not a lawyer, but this in itself could provide a way for you to walk on the contract.

Personally, I might allude to the possibility of ”walking” to your company if they do not make things right, but would probably not actually do it as the company may decide to levy some penalty, fee, or other cute way of taking money out of your paycheck to cover their losses.

Again, if they do not remedy the situation, at least you know which company to avoid in the future.

The best way to keep this from happening is to make sure your recruiter and the housing coordinator know that you want a one-bedroom apartment and will not leave for your assignment until you have a confirmed address (usually at least a week before your contract begins … especially if traveling cross-country).

Once you have the address, go a step further and call the apartment complex and confirm the lease, their address, apartment number, and start date (and any extras agreed upon like the ability to take pets, a second floor apartment, etc.).

You can also look up the complex on any of several rental websites (or the corporate website) and see the location and amenities.

As always, if you do need company options for your next contract, you can write me at david@travelnursesbible.com and I’d be happy to set you up with the great recruiters I use and trust with my travels.

Hope this helps and hope your travel company comes through for you.

David

david@travelnursesbible.com