Hospital cancelled my contract due to inexperience...

[BeccaroseRN]

It was my first travel nursing assignment.

I relocated to Tennessee, spent $1800 in rent, supplies, etc., and I was let go by the hospital for inexperience.

They went on to say that they needed someone who could hit the floor and didn't need any instruction and wouldn't ask a lot of questions. To be honest, I completely agree. I was being floated every night and the amount of mastery needed to meet expectations was staggering. I don't understand, though. The travelers that used to frequent my old unit needed all kinds of help! I even told my recruiter that I wasn't welcome there - which I wasn't. They approved me for another assignment but I haven't heard back from them in days.

My license was TN temporary.

I'm thinking of moving back home, else I have to find employment as a staff nurse here which I'm too depressed to do.

Questions:

1.) Do I have to alert the state boards or some other agency that I will be leaving? I don't want the license to lapse or for anyone to think I'm practicing w/ an expired license.

2.) Do I have to put this experience down or let my potential future employer know on my resume?

Thanks.

[danedsel]

I've always found travel nursing similar to working for a temp agency.

I did these temp assignments for about 5 years in Los Angeles. Within about 3 hours you'd know if an assignment would work out and you'd be back the next day. Sometimes, your recruiter would call on your lunch break and say you were done for trumped-up reasons or deluded suspicions.

Basically, the client (hospital) is where the money is and virtually any reason justifies cancellation. Just remember that (unfortunately) half of all nursing is now from the computer. All outstanding tasks and required documentation must be completed. In other words, anything that can be readily checked with mouse clicks must be addressed. This includes medication being passed out on time.

[Argo]

The agency is responsible for vetting each candidate based on the facility's needs and expectations. The nurse's qualifications are assessed before the contract is even offered, generally. If the facility agrees that the candidate is a good fit experience-wise, the facility offers the position. If the candidate's experience and credentials are not in line with the facility's needs, that should have been addressed by the facility and the agency before the traveler ever dared to venture out to the assignment.

This isnt always true, I am sure your just giving your usual troll type response but I will elaborate for klone since it was an honest question.

Agencies submit to the HR dept, usually someone that specifically deals with agency. The nurse manager of the dept doesn't always get to see the submissions. If they are desperate and have one or two submissions they just set up the contract. Sometimes agencies take on travellers with under a year of experience or fresh out of school. I saw these profiles come across my desk in my years as a director and just shook my head at them and tossed them in the trash. Basically there could be failures on both ends. I would bet that this hospital had something interfering with the original plans that required the traveler staffing request and came up with a reason to cancel. Either that or the 2 years experience wasnt enough for them to be happy with the skill set...

Being a traveler can be hard, especially the first couple of times out of the box. I have had one bad experience in 4 years, it was 5 weeks into a contract early this year. I got cancelled early for erroneous reasons and they had to pay out my contract, 8 weeks remained....

[Swellz]

OP, I'm sorry this happened. My first assignment wasn't exactly a winner either. You need to move forward and look to the next one. Do you want to be in Tennessee for any particular reason? If not then there's no reason to do anything with your temp license and just let it lapse. As long as you don't have a huge gap in your resume, I don't see why it would matter if you just leave this off. Even if you do have a long gap, just tell them you were traveling for fun, rather than specifying travel nursing.

I know you didn't ask for tips, but maybe for your next assignment, try to find one in an environment similar to where you were a staff nurse. For example, if you are from a teaching hospital, try to find a spot at a teaching hospital or if you've only done neuro med-surg, try to find a neuro job specifically. Traveling has so many challenges that you should try to remove some of them for your first assignment. This is not remotely what I did and I think it would have made the transition easier. Hopefully your next contract goes better.

[amzyRN]

I think you got a bad assignment and maybe they weren't helping you out enough. Maybe they wanted a seasoned traveler, but even then they would ask questions. I think a travel nurse needs to be very proficient in the specialty they are in, which can theoretically happen at the 2 year mark. I wouldn't give up the idea of traveling but do more research next time. Some places are more friendly and willing to train than others.

[Ms_Interpret]

This isnt always true..

Of course. Nothing is always true. It's the expectation, but reality has a habit of falling short of expectation. But the reason expectations, policies, procedures and guidelines exist is to have something to reference when shortfalls happen.

It never ceases to amaze me just how little it takes for some people to lose their cool.

...Come to think of it, maybe you need a hug too. Y'all need a group hug sesh.

[klone, MSN, RN]

I know how agencies work, thanks. Not only have I been a traveler in the past, but I work with multiple agencies as a department director. We currently have three travelers on our unit.

[NedRN]

Of course. Nothing is always true. It's the expectation, but reality has a habit of falling short of expectation. But the reason expectations, policies, procedures and guidelines exist is to have something to reference when shortfalls happen.

You consistently don't understand that travel is a business. Hiring travelers with a bare minimum of base experience is a risk with costly consequences for all involved. Doubly so with no proven travel experience. Just because it worked for a hospital to hire you for an assignment without recent clinical experience in no way means that is the norm. Yes, the hospital foolishly took on this travelers and suffered the consequences, both financially, and working short handed after termination (maybe, or maybe as Argo suggested they had something else going on like a staff returning from leave) causing poor care for their clients.

Policies do not protect patients, hospital workers do. Perhaps an accountant wanted to hire a cheap traveler for a $10 an hour less than other agencies. You do know they think a nurse is just a "warm body"? and a cost center, not a profit center. The overworked manager also needed someone to fill the space, and HR may have thought the candidate qualified based on two years of experience. The agency doesn't care over much (at least the bad agencies and recruiters), if she succeeds, they make money, and if she doesn't, they have lost nothing - they don't seem to care about their own reputation.

No way a new traveler has the judgement to determine what a good agency or recruiter looks like (unless she happens to have read many posts I and others have made here), nor what a travel assignment is really like unless she tried per diem at other hospitals (a good thing to do if you want to discover if you are ready for travel). She unfortunately worked at a traveler friendly hospital and didn't know that that is not the norm.

So yes, total failure on all levels. The issue I have with you posts, besides the passive-agressive nature of your language, is that you apparently really believe in what you say, and project your apparently super nurse abilities on others, and obviously do not understand the hospital or travel business. Sure, you may be able to jump straight from three years off to a successful travel assignment and a few nurses might be able to pull that off too, but that in no way lends itself to good comments to new travelers. You are very consistently wrong but I know my these words are wasted on you. I'm only bothering so other readers can hopefully take less credence in your comments. No doubt your response will be a "hug" or suggesting I seek help or anger management. But your posts are designed to provoke anger, why do you think you get responses like this? In this thread alone from two current or past directors of nursing, and me, some 23 years of travel experience and 14 years owning my own agency.

[JJ1023]

I just started my very first travel assignment last week. I took an assignment 1.25 hours from home so I could do this with least amount of disruptions to my home & checkbook if it didn't work out. If this works out, I think I may do a couple more within travel distance from my home & venture out as I learn about my weaknesses & strengths in unknown territory. Maybe something to consider, $1800 is alot of money that you may not recover. Just a thought & best of luck.

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

It never ceases to amaze me just how little it takes for some people to lose their cool.

...Come to think of it, maybe you need a hug too. Y'all need a group hug sesh.

It's disingenuous to write posts in a tone that would make people 'need hugs' then turn around and suggest them...

[Crystal-Wings, LVN]

I'm so sorry this happened to you OP! I know what it's like to take a job and move somewhere far away and then not have it work out. It can be very scary (and lonely!). I hope you have a good emotional support system in place, because there's nothing like being stranded in a strange town/city with nobody to talk to. I didn't.

I wish you the best and I sincerely hope things work out for you whatever you decide to do.

[opalbee]

Geez... The amount of constant bickering on this website..

[NedRN]

Actually there is very little bickering because there is very little traffic. Sometimes you got to wonder if having a troll might be beneficial for traffic. But then you come to your senses.