Critical Care Travel

[alaskaman]

I have worked critical care for 10 years and the last 2 years in a step down unit. I am considering taking one of the very high paying ICU jobs on travel. 

I can make 4x what I may now in one month. I can carry COBRA. May or may not be able to return to current job. I am vaccined up.

 

So tempting.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[NurseBrittRN]

I've been in ICU 9 years and have done sporadic travel during that time. I love my travel experiences as they show me the many different ways other hospitals do things. I've picked up some great tricks over the time. 

With travel nursing you are basically "thrown" in. Your experience should be okay though. You have to learn to go with the flow and be flexible. Sometimes you have no say in days off, shifts, units, floating etc. Esp with the crisis assignments. I was told I had 15 min to pack my bags and move from one hotel to another once. But the pay is worth it to me. 

The biggest downside to traveling is working with unknown charting systems. I'm an EPIC lover and I've had to use Cerner and Meditech at other facilities which sucks but again it's worth it for the pay and experience.