Have I hurt my chances for traveling?

[amedRN]

Hello first post ever here. Always used to skim this site while in nursing school but not always the best idea because it was especially discouraging when I was studying for the NCLEX since it scared me, LOL!

Fast forward to now. I'm ~1.5 years in as a nurse. Before I get attacked, no I am not already trying to get a travel job as of yet (I do realize that you should have at least 2 years before your first travel job) but I've been doing my research into it, joined travel groups on facebook, etc.

I just want to get a few opinions and/or feedback. I work on a what my hospital calls a "med/surg tele" floor. However, I feel like my floor is not technically med/surg nor is it really "telemetry".

To give you an idea of what I mean, we have other units at my hospital that are more surgical than mine and typically get all the fresh post-ops. We hardly ever receive post-ops on my floor unless they're post-op choles or lap appys. And not all of our patients are on the telemetry monitor. Some of them are, but they're also being watched by monitor techs in another room in the hospital. However, I have taken the EKG course at my hospital and can read the strips. Also the only drips we ever have on our floor are heparin or protonix drips (if that even counts). Otherwise if they need to be put on cardizem or any other drips it's off to the cardiac or higher up floor they go.

Now I work nights and we usually have 6-7 patients a nurse. I will always have 6 and recently when we're short staffed we will get 7 each. If it wasn't for my wonderful coworkers I would not have survived as long as I have on this floor. To give you an idea of how "bad" this floor is, I am considered the "most experienced" besides the charge nurses left. We are nothing but new grads on my unit because people come and go so fast. Turnover rate here is horrible.

These are basically the types of diagnoses of patients we have: "altered mental status" (typically really confused/demented geri patients or metabolic encephalopathy pts), pneumonia, CHF, COPD exacerbation, cellulitis, dialysis pts w/ some type of infection going on, cancer patients whether they are on chemo or not (we don't do the chemo), total care patients with feeding tubes/NG tubes,etc. MOST of the time we receive a lot of drug addicts and alcoholics. So pain medications around the clock and/or CIWA.

If anything I feel as if my floor is more of a "general adult medical" floor.

ANYWAYS, I've always wanted to get into traveling but I'm in funk because even when I hit my 2 years I'm not sure if I'll be able to "handle" traveling in med/surg? Does my unit even qualify to have given me the experience I need to know enough to hit the ground running as a traveler?

obviously you can probably tell I'm no longer happy with being on this unit, not even sure if I was ever happy to begin with. I'm finding myself more and more drained whenever I go in. Half the time I don't even feel like a nurse and as if I'm just trying to get the next "task" done in order to get it done and manage my time well and see all my patients. When we're pushed to 7 this is especially hard because there will usually be 1-2 of those patients who I worry about more and focus more my time on hoping to god that my other patients are okay!

I just don't know if the experience I have had comes down to me "knowing enough" to be a traveler in med/surg.

Will I be okay once I hit my 2 years to do traveling in med/surg? Or do I switch specialities and get another 2 years AND THEN travel?

My dilemma though is that I'm in my hometown and I really don't want to be in this city for another 2 years. Do I just up and move and start a new job somewhere else on a different floor?

I appreciate if anyone actually takes the time to read all of this and respond, I'm sorry I know it's long. But I'm in a bit of a funk here. This floor is already starting to make me feel "burned out" and I haven't even hit 2 years as a nurse. I need some type of change and soon. Any opinions/advice would be appreciative.

[Elaken]

As long as you are someone who can learn quick you are fine to travel. You won't be able to do tele because you don't have that experience but you can do med/surg travel. I am a float pool nurse in my hospital system and each hospital is pretty different (I float to 3 out of the 5) and it is less about knowing the patient population than being confident and learning quickly.

For example my main hospital has 3 surgical units but they all take almost any kind of regular medical when they are the only free bed. One generally does backs/bariatric/other GI surgeries. One takes ortho. One takes urological/thyroid surgery/thoracotomy. Even if you worked on one you wouldn't have dealt with the others. So it isn't about knowing it all when traveling. Your floor has given you a wide range of experience.

When you travel a unit might keep certain patients for core staff otherwise you say "what should I look for in this patient" and you make it work. You also learn to love Lippincott procedures. I confidently removed fluid from my first pleurx drain using the list from Lippincott.

[amedRN]

Trying to see if i can bump this thread back if someone can answer this question.

If I decide that I just want to switch units first is it possible to up and move to a different city to be hired on another floor and trained for that floor? Say ER for instance? Do hospitals typically hire other nurses that aren't new grads and would be willing to train them for an ER position ? I've been looking at that too but it seems like most ER positions want experienced ER nurses only.

I honestly can't decide what other specialty I may like but I know I'm getting tired of having 6-7 patients all the time and practically being total care for all of them with little to no help. It's affecting me mentally and physically and basically almost makes me want to leave nursing altogether and question if I made the right decision with this career.

I've just been researching into the travel gig on the facebook groups and honestly the posts I see seem way more NEGATIVE than positive in the travel world and it's really discouraging for a newbie to make the decision to jump into traveling in the first place.

[NedRN]

Is that a serious question? Of course you can look for job in a new specialty. Teaching hospital's mission, right? Why not shadow nurses in other specialties now before you start looking for a new job/internship. Then you will get an idea if you like it or not before committing to another specialty you don't like.

[ScottMedicRN]

I don't think the ICU is that stressful compared to the ER. I tried to cross train for the ER and quit after 2 days. But to me, managing some of the downright stupid complaints of ER patients, and having several of them in and out, is way more stressful and depressing than having 2 critical patients. We may be different in that way.