Does Not Having A Nursing "Specialty" Matter?

[Nurse_Lightning]

Hello All!

I'm a 27 yo RN(BSN) with 3.5 years experience at the same hospital (but different units). 2 years was in Medical-Surgical, and the last 1.5 years have been in perioperative services (prep/recovery).

I've always wanted to travel but I knew my chances would be better after having some experience under my belt. The problem is, when I'm doing job searches, I always see: ICU, NICU, OR-Circulator, PACU, MS Tele, CVICU, etc.

Well, I'm technically not a PACU nurse and all I've ever done is Med-Surg. I'm currently in graduate school obtaining my MSN for Family Nurse Practitioner and will be graduating in 1 year. But I REALLY want to be a travel nurse in April 2016 until August to make money before beginning my last semester of school.

Do I have enough experience? Does lack of a specialty disqualify me? How much should I expect to be paid based on experience? Thank you for taking the time to reply!

[NedRN]

So I would say yes, you could. However, you won't make so much money from one assignment that it would be worth bypassing doing a specialty internship if you can handle that concurrently with your NP program. You may even find it to be less money when you consider health insurance, possible sickness (no pay for travelers if no work and often termination is the result), holiday pay and vacation accrual (and presumably education benefits for your NP). The nurses I have worked with in an NP program routinely miss a shift a week. If that is OK with your hospital, I'd go that way if you can afford it (might be worthwhile carrying some debt).

[Nurse_Lightning]

So I would say yes, you could. However, you won't make so much money from one assignment that it would be worth bypassing doing a specialty internship if you can handle that concurrently with your NP program. You may even find it to be less money when you consider health insurance, possible sickness (no pay for travelers if no work and often termination is the result), holiday pay and vacation accrual (and presumably education benefits for your NP). The nurses I have worked with in an NP program routinely miss a shift a week. If that is OK with your hospital, I'd go that way if you can afford it (might be worthwhile carrying some debt).

Your feedback has been truly invaluable to me! Thank you! I hope you get paid for this! I know it must take a lot of time to respond to all of these posts! But you're a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate you for sharing.

[NedRN]

You are very welcome!