Do Psych Nurses Travel?

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

If you have traveled as a psych nurse - tell me about it!

Hppy

1
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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

I have not, but have worked with psych nurses who have travelled who became regular employees and also those who were travelling nurses working a contract.

I don't wish to be negative, so please allow me to put it this way: Those who have travelled as psych nurses have alluded to the fact that their assignments were "challenging". And those travelling psych nurses that I've worked with were really good at undergoing spontaneous respirations.

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I have worked as a Travel Nurse in Cardiac, IMC, ICU and Psych. Yes, there are horror stories (and people love to share them!) that Travel Nurses get the most challenging assignments. This was not my personal experience, but I saw it happen with other travelers. It depends on you. I went into each new site confident in my nursing skills and abilities, but humble in the fact that I did not know everything about that site/unit. I asked appropriate questions (like where to find supplies), then proved myself as a nurse with my work quality. I never felt I was given difficult patients on purpose.

I did work with 2 different travelers who were cocky and frequently told permanent staff things like, "that's not we did it at such-n-such last job," and they just had "better than you" attitudes all around. Those two people did seem to get harder patient loads.

It's important to realize though that Travelers are needed to fill staffing shortages for many reasons, including: unit/facility is poorly managed, patient acuity is generally very high/overwhelming, etc, so the units needing Travelers may be generally perceived as more difficult over all than well-run units. The permanent staff generally appreciated Travelers, because our presence took some of the load off them, especially if they'd been pulling a lot of overtime to cover shortages and were getting worn out.

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

With any travel assignment, there is usually a good reason that a given facility does not have permanent staff to fill the spots given to travelers.

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Specializes in Psych RN BC.

Check out the article on my page! It’s some insight into psych travel nursing!

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