Flight Nurse

On 12/22/2021 at 5:15 PM, Aswanb said:

Hello! I am currently certified as an EMT and working on my BSN and I hope to pursue a master's degree after that. My long-term goal is to become a flight nurse, but I am not sure the best way to do it. I have done a lot of research and most things I have read are kind of broad, so I am trying to find the most streamlined. I have a couple of questions and would very much appreciate any and all advice!

1. Would getting my paramedic and working part-time as a medic while working part-time as an ER or ICU nurse be beneficial while I get field experience?

2. What extra certifications (aside from the CFRN) would be beneficial?

3. Is an NP degree valuable as a flight nurse and is there a way to specialize in flight in that degree?

4. Are there any other ways to be a better candidate while applying to flight nurse jobs?

5. I have looked at entering the Air Force, but I am still unsure about it so anyone has any personal experiences I would love to hear!

Thank you for your time!

A lot of what you ask depends on where you end up flying.  For most flight jobs which are medic/nurse, getting your paramedic cert is unnecessary.  Use your EMT card to get some pre-hospital experience on the side and then focus the rest of your energy on getting nursing experience (at least 3 years full-time is required just to apply).  There are a few flight services that only hire RNs who also hold a paramedic card (their crew is RN/RN), but these services aren't as common.

IMHO from when I worked as a flight medic, ICU experience for the nurse is better than ER experience.  Between the nurse and the medic, the best use of the nurses skillset is in understanding and managing the advanced pathophysiology and medications found on most of your interfacility transfers (which will be the vast majority of your flights).  With some exceptions, I found the ICU nurses better complemented my skill set to make a more well-rounded crew, YMMV.

As for getting your ACNP, there are a few flight services that utilize an APP (some even use resident physicians) as a part of the flight crew.  These jobs are relatively few and far between, and I don't believe having an NP will give you a leg-up versus an RN when going for a general flight nurse position.  It would also not be very financially responsible, as flight nursing pays significantly less than what NP jobs do.  

OK! Thank you so much for your advice!

Hello!
I am currently a flight nurse and I happened to stumble on your question so I'll do my best to answer.

1. Working as a paramedic would of course be beneficial to you, for learning and exposure purposes, but it is 100% not necessary to be a flight nurse. We work with a paramedic partner (usually) and we learn each others jobs/skills very well.

2. CFRN would be great to have, it is usually required within 2 years of hire. Having at least one specialty certification is required to apply. I had CCRN and SCRN when I applied, and am now studying to take the CFRN.

3. As far as I know, there is no need for an NP in the flight world at this time. Our protocols are written by providers and we use those to treat. One of the flight nurses I know is an FNP, but likes his flight job better. 

4. The best way to be a candidate is to work at a level 1/2 trauma center. You need at least 3 years in ER/ICU to apply. Not all ER and ICUs are the same though, you will be exposed to much more critical and specialty patients if you work at a level 1/2 trauma, stroke, stemi center. Having 3 years ICU/ER in a small community hospital does not look nearly as good. Best way to be rounded is to do both, but again not needed. I never worked full time in an ER or in the field, only ICU. I did work ground CCT which I thought was helpful. 

Hope this helps :)

For the record, I'm not a flight nurse, but I have worked with a few. I'm not sure if this interests you at all, but another option would be to go the pediatric flight route. The guys I know said that they chose to do NICU as a pathway to flight because there's a much smaller pool of applicants with peds backgrounds, so it's less competitive. From my understanding, some flight companies staff both a peds and adult nurses on a single team, while others have peds-specific teams.

IMO, a high-acuity PICU would probably give you better experience than NICU (especially since a lot of referral NICUs have their own ground transport teams, so you probably wouldn't transport a ton of preemies anyway). This is just speculation, but you might find that the transports for kids on average take longer than adults; there are fewer hospitals that can treat children than adults, so you may have to travel farther to reach them. Perhaps in peds you'd have more air transports than ground, although I'm not sure.

Some of the NICUs I've worked in routinely sent neonatal NPs (NNPs) on transports. Their NP skills weren't necessary for the transport itself, but rode along so that they could go into the community hospitals and help stablize/intubate/place lines in the babies before transport (since most community hospitals don't know how to intubate a 1 lb baby). However, these NPs weren't part of a 'flight team;' rather, they were part of a NICU-specific ground transport team staffed by our unit, and when they weren't doing transports they were managing patients like a regular ICU provider. 

Thank y'all for your advice. I really appreciate it!

On 1/2/2022 at 6:31 PM, adventure_rn said:

I'm not sure if this interests you at all, but another option would be to go the pediatric flight route. The guys I know said that they chose to do NICU as a pathway to flight because there's a much smaller pool of applicants with peds backgrounds, so it's less competitive.

This was going to be my suggestion also. The pool of candidates is much smaller. Only drawback is that Peds/Neo flight teams are strictly hospital-hospital transfer. There are no scene transport. 

I’ll definitely look into that! Thanks!

Get ICU experience. I worked at a hospital that let me take any course for free, so I collected relevant cards like NRP STABLE PALS etc while working at an adult ICU. They like EMS experience, so the EMT is good. They REALLY like paramedic experience. There are some RN to paramedic bridge programs out there now to get you the license. They also really like ground critical care transport experience, as it’s a similar field.