Is 2 years Psych Experience enough to Travel?

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I went into nursing to do psychiatric nursing. At this point, I'm only 2 years into my nursing career which as only been Behavioral and Detox. My facility is undergoing some change in management, and travel nursing is starting to look more appealing, but I'm not sure if 2 years of Psych and ONLY Psych makes me a strong enough candidate for that type of gig.

I am not ANCC certified in Psych yet.

Any input?

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Should be enough time to be a successful psych traveler.

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yea you could basically travel on 6 months. Certified (deleted my lol) its like a Phd in nursing you're not going to get paid for it, but if it makes you feel better ...yay?

if you travel do some research in comps and how taxes work for the state and company youre working for. There are hidden secrets to it, but endless overtime in most cases.

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Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

Yes! Psych is my baby and I've been in psych for 7 out of 8 years. (I had a meltdown about 4 years ago and my life went to $hit so I ended in LTC for a bit.)

I think traveling was a good idea now that I felt ready and comfortable. I got 2 days of orientation and it took a week to get access to the EMR/computer charting/Pyxis, but psych is psych. I'm actually on a much less acute unit than I'm used to, with great teamwork and a pretty good workflow.

I'm extending my first 13 week contract and knew that I wanted to extend by week 4.

Psych is a weird thing because sometimes you just don't know what you don't know, and every unit is different. I think I would have been professionally prepared to travel after 2 years. Know your milieu management, crisis de-escalation, meds and charting and you're golden!

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Specializes in Psych/Travel.

Hey learning247, I've been traveling about 4 years now, I'm an ADN with out my BC and started with about 2 years or so experience. There are a lot of travel positions currently available, many of them pay very well. Being a good travel psych nurse mostly depends on the nurse, how well they can handle an intervention or avoid one, how well they treat the patients and what tips and tricks the nurse can offer the facility to aid in improving daily operations. Over time mostly depends on the facility its self, in KCMO no over time at all no holidays. Here in Tallahassee when I first started no over time, now they are allowing due to the need for nurses, other facilities that offer all the over time you want, you really don't want to spend any more time there then you have to. For a little more information, there is a Facebook group 'psych travel nurses' you can request to join, there they post current openings and pay, you may also ask guidance from other travelers.

Good luck to you.

Steve

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