New Grad

bagladyrn, RN · Feb 2, 2005

I will soon be a new grad. I have thought about travel nursing in the future. The question is how far in the future. How much experience is enough to begin travel nursing?

I'd suggest that you get a minimum of one year, preferably more in the specialty in which you plan to travel.

You need to be able to walk into a new hospital and function independently with minimal orientation - sometimes 1-2 days, sometimes only a few hours of "here is the paperwork, here iswhere we keep supplies". You need to be confident and safe in your skills before starting to travel.

It's worth taking the extra time to be sure you are ready to enjoy your travel experience.

*PICURN* · Feb 2, 2005

I thought about doing that as well as a new grad ($$$$$$$ I am sure you know!) but after finishing my program there's no way I would be able to handle jumping into something like that as a new grad.

I also checked into a lot of companies (you can do a search online) and 99.9% of them require at least 6mo-1yr of experience before you can sign on.

suzanne4, RN · Feb 3, 2005

Most of the bigger PICUs want you to have several years experience............

Dixielee, BSN, RN · Feb 3, 2005

Most companies and hospitals will not consider anyone with less than one year experience. I think that is even a stretch. As someone already mentioned, you will get very little orientation, and will be expected to be completely up and running in no time. They will expect you to have all of your nursing skills down pat, have enough experience that if they show you a new piece of equipment, you will at least have a working relationship with a similar one. There will be people who will answer facility specific questions, "how do you do this here", or do you fax or call the pharmacy with a new order....that kind of stuff, but you should not have to say, " I have never put down and NG before, or hung blood, or given certain meds if they are common to your area of expertice.

Get comfortable being a nurse first, and I think it probably takes more than a year.

*PICURN* · Feb 3, 2005

Most of the bigger PICUs want you to have several years experience............

i'm not doing travel nursing, and when i was interested i was thinking ER. Now I'm at a university hospital w/a good orientation program