PCU/Post cath lab Recovery RN TO Travel RN?

[Ebony317]

I currently work on a post cath lab recovery unit and have been doing so for 2 years this coming July. This was my first and only job out of nursing school. I am telemetry trained, trained in cardiac care, trained on post PCI care, sheath pulls, TR band removals, post ablation care and post pacemaker/ICD insertion care. I have NO med-surg experience whatsoever, other than the experience I have obtained from being floated to other units a handful of times. I am also trained to perform nuclear cardiac stress tests, both treadmill and pharmacological.

I am curious as to whether or not I have enough experience to look into travel nursing in a couple of months once my 2 years has been completed. I know for a fact that I will not necessarily want to work med surg floors upon becoming a travel nurse as I have never had a desire to work med surg at all. Are there options for nurses who have cardiac/post procedure recovery experience to become travel nurses as well? What are some agencies that would be a good fit for nurses in my situation? Any suggestions are welcome, thank you guys in advance!!

[ChrisMMS]

Recruiter here! I've tried to answer your questions to the best of my ability below.

1) PCU is a fairly large field in the travel world, it's the second most positions that I personally see next to Med/Surg. You'll have a lot of opportunities available to you with almost every agency you look at. As for post cath lab recovery I don't see very many specific specialty positions like this very often, but this experience and skill set does set you apart from other nurses helping you have a competitive advantage in the submission process. A lot of travel contracts may require you to float to Med/Surg so i would look at those carefully to make sure they are meeting your requirements before submission.

2) Your second question is a harder one to answer since it is very subjective. Different nurses are going to have different experiences with each agency and within each agency there are a plethora of recruiters that you could get along with or hate. If you have any current travelers at your location or have friends that are travelers I would ask them for advice on experiences they've had. It's in your best interest to work with multiple agencies/recruiters to find one that fits with you well. Agencies/recruiters work on very different margins and have different contracts available so working with multiple agencies opens up the amount of opportunities you have. I'd recommend trying to find someone you are comfortable, who you can ultimately rely on to advocate for you when things are hard. There are a few travel groups on facebook like Wanderlust Travelers, Gypsy Nurse, and Traveler Talk.

3) Suggestions I have for you to make this transition easier if you do decide to take the leap are listed below.

- Try to have all of your paperwork in one area that is easy to access from your computer + Phone. (Resume, references, certifications, licenses, immunization records, etc.)

- Try not to fill out an online application with your information. A majority of agencies buy your information from these websites and you'll end up getting lots of phone calls, texts, and emails.

- If you haven't had a chance yet look at the benefits of traveling like tax advantage program, housing stipend, etc.

- Have a decent amount of savings because the starting cost of traveling can be expensive. Not to mention to have a safety net to fall back on if things happen to go wrong.

[NedRN]

Your specific experience seems most appropriate to a clinic setting or a hospital with a lot of cath labs and will be hard to find. I do know a nurse who travels with her husband, a cath lab nurse. Since cath lab RNs are in huge demand, they are in a position to demand an assignment for her as well. She works preop/postop, or the regular recovery room as needed. I'm wondering about your recovery experience from GA - I know that happens occasionally in the cath lab. PACU is a good travel position.

Also, you put PCU in your title meaning progressive care unit? Or was that a typo? Depending on the hospital, PCU is rather fluid with medsurg.

[Argo]

Id suggest pacu travel jobs... if your in a cath lab thats busy and uses anesthesia then id guess you're doing pacu already, most places just call it that...

[ChrisMMS]

Your specific experience seems most appropriate to a clinic setting or a hospital with a lot of cath labs and will be hard to find. I do know a nurse who travels with her husband, a cath lab nurse. Since cath lab RNs are in huge demand, they are in a position to demand an assignment for her as well. She works preop/postop, or the regular recovery room as needed. I'm wondering about your recovery experience from GA - I know that happens occasionally in the cath lab. PACU is a good travel position.

Also, you put PCU in your title meaning progressive care unit? Or was that a typo? Depending on the hospital, PCU is rather fluid with medsurg.

Oh man I misread that I was thinking PCU as progressive care unit/stepdown/tele etc. PACU pays much more and generally has a decent option of choices especially with Cath lab experience.

[NedRN]

I was thinking perhaps PCI was intended. If you hate medsurg, you probably hate PCU.

[Bella1003]

I am in a similar situation and wondered if you ever ended up traveling? I am working pre/ post cath lab and would like to travel in the future but don’t see a whole lot of job postings.  I was curious if it would be feasible to look for regular pre/ post job postings or if that would be too hard to swing?

[NedRN]

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but pre/post cath lab seems like a cushy entry level job or burned out on more stressful specialties segue to me. Sure, you need some cardiac skills if you are doing interventional, but would assume post cath with issues go straight to ICU?

So I think you are right, not much in the way of travel needs for that position, and probably bottom pay for travelers. Can you add medsurg/tele or even PACU assignments to stay busy?

[Bella1003]

We manage/ start drips and recover our patients from moderate sedation/ general anesthesia. So we are a PACU in a sense. We pull all our sheaths. We recover generals from cardiac procedures only .. pacemakers, ablations, etc .. we do outpatients and inpatients. We also do bedside tees/ cardioversions. Everyone has to have at least tele experience most of us have PCU some ICU. If the patient is on a pressor or is tanking we do send them straight to ICU if there’s beds, if not we hold them until there’s a bed. It’s just cardiac only so the learning curve would be the different procedures aspect not the ability to recover patients from general anesthesia. I was just curious if anyone had successfully done it or something similar or if trying to recover procedures you’re not use to would be too overwhelming.