On some levels working as a professional travel nurse looks likes the ideal job. It provides nurses with an opportunity to live and work in different parts of the country. They can interact with new people. Travel nurses pull in an excellent salary. They make friends all over the country. They can move south in the winter, and north in the summer. If they feel like taking a few months off, they don’t have to worry about explaining things to their bosses; they just give themselves a few months to improve their mental health before they accept a new assignment. Travel nurses claim that their jobs give them an opportunity to re-establish their patient focused medicine. Nurses have excellent medical and dental benefits. Who wouldn’t want to be a travel nurse?
The reality is that not every person who comes out of a nursing program is not suitable for a career as a travel nurse.
When you are considering a life as a travel nurse you have to ask yourself if you really like to travel. The life of a travel nurse is serious, hard core traveling. Travel nurses are constantly on the move, going from one state to another, taking assignment after assignment. All the moving around eventually takes a toll on the body and soul.
Bear in mind that travel nurses are working, this is not an extended family vacation, and they aren’t back packing across Europe. While they are on an assignment travel nurses are on a schedule. They are expected to report to work, on time, at the beginning of each one of their shifts. While they are working they are dealing with sick and injured people. They are expected to give one hundred and ten percent of themselves while they are working. Travel nurses go away to work, not to party.
Do you have an easy time making new friends? Travel nurses are constantly going to cities and towns where they are strangers. They don’t know anyone in these places. In order for their experience to be positive they have to have a talent for turning complete strangers into close friends.
Nurses that have a significant other may have a hard time adjusting to life as a travel nurse. Unless the significant other is able to travel from one location to another it is difficult to stay together as a couple. One circumstance when travel nursing does work when a couple decides to work in tandem and are able to find nursing assignments in the same hospitals and medical facility’s.
Before you sign with a nursing agency decide if you can tolerate moving away from your family, friends, and pets. Working as a travel nurse is going to require you to spend several months away from your home town.
Carefully consider all the requirement and responsibilities expected from a travel nurse before you sign with a nursing agency. Qualities that a good travel nurse should embrace are a zest for adventure, a strong work ethic, confidence in their medical knowledge, and a gregarious personality. If you are a nurse with at least one year of experience working in a hospital and feel that you would make and excellent travel nurse start placing your application at agencies.
