L&D travel Am I ready?

[sukari79, ASN, RN]

I have 2 years of L&D experience but my hospital has only 40-50 (mostly high risk) births per month. It's a teaching hospital so the residents get all the experience with the vag checks, etc. I'm venturing out to gain more experience and have always been intrigued by travel nursing. I'm not sure if I should go for a permanent position as I've been offered positions at 2 different hospitals. I also have a contract in hand for travel nursing. I'm extremely excited about the knowledge and information to be gained and yet nervous that the nurses may not be helpful because their expectations will be high because I am a travel nurse. Any advice would be helpful!

Thanks!!

[NedRN]

Go for it!

[Wolf at the Door, BSN]

just do travel work for teaching hospitals. not knowing how dilated a woman is and not knowing how to placing fetal scalp electrode etc is not good. Smaller community hospitals will expect you to do all of that.

[sukari79, ASN, RN]

Thanks for the advice. How do you suggest I learn, if I only work for teaching hospitals?

[NedRN]

It is possible to learn skills while traveling. Stay within a comfort zone of patient safety, be honest with skills checklists and upfront on interviews and you may find assignments where they are willing to orient you to new skills. You have a large advantage in that your skills are in huge demand, so most managers will be willing to accept poor skills in some tasks. Just test in the interview how happy they might be to give you a leg up.

[Wolf at the Door, BSN]

Thanks for the advice. How do you suggest I learn, if I only work for teaching hospitals?

Let a resident teach you while still employed at least with the dilation checks. Other than that you may want to work per diem at non teaching facility if they wont teach you. You can also try to pick up the experience on a travel assignment. Although the facility may want you to do 26 weeks and also to help you hone your skills.

[sukari79, ASN, RN]

Great suggestion!