Reality: two years exp. minimum needed to travel; comments welcome

[AmandaWIRN]

OK, boys & girls- we're all professionals here, so lets learn to disagree without being rude or making personal attacks....

[stinybee]

I just wanted to chime in a little on this one. I have recently started my first traveling assignment (Oct 20th) and started as a nurse with only a little over a year of experience. It was a little more difficult to find a position that I thought suited me because of this, but it can be done. I came with a very good first year of experience in a busy Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, but by no means do I consider myself an experienced nurse. I know I still have a ton to learn. I think when you don't have a lot of experience you definitely need to do your homework when looking for a job and make sure the hospital is the right environment for you. I ended up taking a PACU position at a hospital in Boston and love it! The people are great! I did hit the ground running with hardly any orientation, but everyone is very helpful and supportive. When I interviewed with different hospitals I asked a lot of questions regarding staffing, nurse: patient ratio, patient acuity, types of surgeries, etc to get a good feel for what I was going to be dealing with. Surprisingly I did turn down several positions just because I didn't think they were a good fit for me...often for more than one reason and as weird as it may sound sometimes because I just got a bad "vibe" during the interview.

Anyway, good luck, keep trying and if you want to know my recruiters info let me know!!

[bleucloud]

I think it depends on where you are from and the company. I work with a girl who just graduated and she did a year in africa and east india before she came here to work. I am not sure the company she was under but she went directly from school.

[nancy_rhae]

Originally Posted by maryk650

Keep trying. There are agencies out there that only require 1 year, esp. if you have experience. Try Medical Solutions. Be glad to give you or anyone else interested a referral.

who have you found to be the better travel agencies?

[nancy_rhae]

Originally Posted by stinybee

I just wanted to chime in a little on this one. I have recently started my first traveling assignment (Oct 20th) and started as a nurse with only a little over a year of experience. It was a little more difficult to find a position that I thought suited me because of this, but it can be done. I came with a very good first year of experience in a busy Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, but by no means do I consider myself an experienced nurse. I know I still have a ton to learn. I think when you don't have a lot of experience you definitely need to do your homework when looking for a job and make sure the hospital is the right environment for you. I ended up taking a PACU position at a hospital in Boston and love it! The people are great! I did hit the ground running with hardly any orientation, but everyone is very helpful and supportive. When I interviewed with different hospitals I asked a lot of questions regarding staffing, nurse: patient ratio, patient acuity, types of surgeries, etc to get a good feel for what I was going to be dealing with. Surprisingly I did turn down several positions just because I didn't think they were a good fit for me...often for more than one reason and as weird as it may sound sometimes because I just got a bad "vibe" during the interview.

Anyway, good luck, keep trying and if you want to know my recruiters info let me know!!

Hi! Can you let me know some of the better travel agencies out there? My fiance and I want to travel together we are both Icu nurses I have 17 months experience, he has 20 months. Any info would be great! Thanks!:rose: Nancy

[AmandaWIRN]

I have been very happy with RN Network, PM me if you'd like my recruiter's contact info.

[NurseBre]

Originally Posted by rloufek

With all due respect, you are making a lot of incorrect assumptions. I apologize ahead of time if I sound a little annoyed during this post. The travel nurse agencies are NOT doing me or anyone a favor by not placing me. During my first year as a nurse I worked at the #3 hospital in the nation. I worked with nurses who had 20-30 years experience, and frankly, after a few months I became as good or even better than many of them. That is not self-delusion. I actually saved one of their patients from getting IV potassium as a bolus: the senior nurse (a charge nurse) had attached the IVPB to the port AFTER the pump. I was in the room to help her move the patient up in bed and noticed the super fast rate of the drip when the patient starting complaining of her IV burning. I stopped it immediately, of course. This is only one example. I have extremely good references from there; they were very sorry to see me leave.

I am 47-years-old, and have a lot of life and work experience that I bring to nursing. I was an LAPD police officer during the LA riots in 1992. I can handle just about anything. I have also been a supervisor and trained new employees in another profession.

I have read "From Novice to Expert" and met the author. Her research is talking about the average nurse/person when she says that it takes 2-3 years to become proficient as a nurse, and to truly think like one. There are those who become proficient much faster, and those who never get there.

I know all about the nursing shortage. I was on the Board of Directors of the National Student Nurses Association, as well as before that on the board of my state student nurses association, and the president of my school chapter. I probably know more about the nursing profession than most seasoned nurses. I attended the recent American Nurses Association House of Delegates, and plan to go to Durban, South Africa for the 2009 ICN conference.

I also read as much as I could about travel nursing before trying it. Nowhere did anyone say that you need more than one year of experience; you didn't post it anywhere, did you? And of course I know that travelers get a bonus if they refer someone who then completes an assignment. Why wouldn't I know this? Everyone wants to make a buck anyway they can. I won't "get too excited" when yet another traveler tries to get me to call up her recruiter. I am too old to "get too excited" about anything.

The purpose of my original posting was to inform other new nurses about my experience, so that they would add it to whatever else they might read about travel nursing and make an informed decision before trying it. How about we keep that intent here? If I am reading your posting correctly, you have left nursing and feel incompetent to travel. So what you said applied to yourself. Please do not assume that either myself or others are not competent or even exceptional nurses, no matter how little time we have been in the profession. I sincerely hope that your new career is going well.

THank you so much for posting about this. I am just starting as an RN but am looking to travel after a year as well. I had no idea that it would be so hard to find a place. I thought with all the shortage it should be no problem. Nurse Finders is actually a large company I thought. Your resume and experience sounds awesome. I do not think you are bragging at all, that is something to be worth sharing with us considering how hard it was to find a traveling job with that. Who wouldn't want to employ you? I do understand your annoyance with the post before this one on which you quoted. People love to assume and take things out of context dont they? I think you handled it well and got your point across. I agree with all you have said. Good luck finding something and let me know which company you go with!

[DavidRN]

Now it will be my turn to agree with Amanda's post :-) If you carefully read the above post, you will notice that she is not a current traveler. So, how can you be angered by her post rather than just disregard it as someone who is not well informed.

She made reference to this not being 1995, but what she failed to see is that I have been actively working in this profession for over a decade. No, that does not make me special, but it does mean that I am informed. While I myself am not a first time traveler, I have met many in my travels and quite a few of them still only had one year of nursing experience prior to traveling.

Try some of the big companies and do not limit yourself to just one company. I recommend signing up with three or four. I am currently "on file" with about six. Sign up with American Mobile, Cross Country, Trinity, and Cirrus. See what they can do for you. RN Network is a solid company, but even solid companies will have some recruiters that are much better than others. It might be a rough road in the beginning, but once you get your foot in the door, it can be such a rewarding profession.

If you would like to message me, I can refer you to my recruiter at AMH who I really like. It's not about getting you referred, it's about getting you to someone that will help you find an assignment. Keep plugging away and you will eventually find someone who is willing to get you on your way.

[kptravel]

I agree. I like friendly forums. My wife needed 2 years of experience before we could travel.
Give a look at my blog.
TRAVEL NURSE BLOG Traveling Carruth's

[musherdeb]

i agree with the need to have experience before you travel. i have been a charge nurse dealing with travelers. it is so frustrating to get a nurse who says "i have so much experience" and then when you get them it becomes very odvious that they had no experience at all
I am also a traveler.
so.
1. you should have strong organizational skills. you never know what kind of patient load you are going to get. you should be able to easily handle a load of 6-8 pts if you have to. keep in mind some places do not use nurses aides so your work load could increase even more.
2. are you able to use the computer charting system? can you jump into a new system with little effort? can you still chart on a written chart?
3. are your iv skills up to par? can you start iv's.
4. what skill base are you bringing to the facility. can you put in an NG tube without difficulty, can you place a foley, can you deal with 2 discharges and 2 admissions at one time?

it is so important for the traveler to be independent and be able to just dump into the mix and go. it is so frustrating to get a nurse that is traveling and then have to hold their hand and teach them how to do basic skills.
be totally honest with your skills. dont come across as experienced if you are not.

one time we got a nurse that had been in nursing homes for 20 years and wanted to work as a med/surg nurse. she came to work and could not even take more than one patient at a time before she was panicking.
another nurse claimed to be a great ER nurse and he could not start an iv, had no clue how to deal with a Nitro Drip let alone a dompamine drip. he could not even hook up the cardiac monitor.
so that was a very scary time. i was the charge nurse then and spent a lot of time in the ER for those shifts. it was so frustrating.

when i travel i let the facility know that i am a well rounded nurse and can float to most units but i always always tell them my exact skill set. i float to icu but i am not an icu nurse and i let them know ahead of time that i cant do ventilator patients. could i jump in and help, of course but i dont want the responsibility of the pt load.

be honest with yourself and with the facility

have fun. but be honest. if you want to travel then please work on your skill base before you go out there.