mtnNurse, IV skills are always nice to have, but most places I've worked the Med/Surg nurses weren't very good with IV's nor were they expected to be. Most of them would call ICU or ER for hard sticks unless they had an IV team. I wouldn't fret if your IV skills aren't up to snuff. I've been traveling for many years and it's hit or miss with the CNAs / Techs. Some assignments you have no techs at all, some assignments you have one tech for the entire floor and a few assignments I had plenty of techs. That's always a good question to ask in your interview with the facility, but sometimes they aren't going to be honest with their answer so try to 'read between the lines'.
baschaff , I have to say that most places I've worked at were fair with patient assignments, but there have been a few where the travelers got the worse of the worst and those were usually the smaller rural hospitals. I think the reason is two-fold. 1. rural nurses and doctors aren't as experienced as a seasoned travel nurse (usually) so they give the "scary" patients to the travelers 2. small rural hospitals are very 'clicky' and they rather shit on you than their neighbor, you're leaving eventually so if they piss you off, no big deal really.
Overall, travel is very challenging, you have to be able to take some abuse (a lot in some rare cases) , but you also have to be able to put your foot down and say "NO" when things are dangerous and/or jeopardize your license. Only you know what you can handle and if it's getting to be too much you have to be comfortable speaking up because they don't know your limits.
