Next step to go..travel nursing vs. ICU vs. going for MSN

[katballou]

Hi everyone, I'm new to posting here at allnurses. So I have been a nurse for about 7 years now. 30 yrs old, single, no kids. I've spent mainly the whole time working on medsurg/cardiac units. I can totally tolerate the madness of the floors but at this point I gotta do something different before I burn out. I'm thinking of trying another specialty like ICU. I worked in ICU back then in my 3rd year as a nurse but looking back I was not in the right mindset, got overwhelmed and quit it after 5 months and went back to the floors. I wanna give it a go again now that I'm older.

A part of me though also wants to temporarily leave Texas soon, I'm based in Houston, and do travel nursing. I've been doing agency/contract nursing locally for the past year and recently I received my California license. I would love to go out there for a couple of assignments but I'll obviously still be doing floor nursing there as it's the only field I truly have experience in and I'm just worried about growing tired of my job.

And then one last is I eventually would like to go for my masters as a nurse practitioner (I like the more autonomy, knowledge, less bedside focus) I'm definitely considering pursing an online program to allow me to hopefully continue working full time as long as I can handle and not have a cutback on pay.

So out of these three things I wanna do, I am trying to figure out which route to take first. I want to pursue them all in the long run but just can't make up my mind as to the sensible order of sequence to take them up..or simultaneously? (like travel nursing and masters or ICU and masters) Any advice???? Truly would appreciate any feedback!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

You make valuable contacts in graduate school, so when you go to graduate school try to go in an area where you want to stay after you graduate. Do your traveling first.

If you are feel as though you are free to travel now, do so! Working Med-Surg in California may be vastly different from what you're used to, and the experience of traveling will in all likelihood keep boredom and burnout at bay for a long time. If you know you'd like to travel and DON'T go now, you may meet someone and not want to leave, or your parents will need care and you can't leave or you're tied down to a house . . . There are all kinds of reasons why people cannot travel now . . . If you don't have any of those reasons NOT to travel, travel now. You certainly have enough experience to be able to travel safely.

As far as ICU -- once you've traveled and decided where you want to stay, settle down and try it. With two years of ICU experience, you can travel as an ICU nurse. But if you wait until you HAVE the ICU experience, you may have an SO you don't want to leave or a child you'll have to consider or any number of other obstacles. If you want to travel, travel now before life gets in the way.