Nuru

So my wife and I are planning on starting to travel in about 2 years. Our plan is to buy a large sailboat and live aboard for 8 or 9 months a year and pick up one 3 month contract once a year as well as maybe another short contract (so we only go 4 or 5 months between contracts). Right now I have 1 year in the ED (moderately busy level 1) and was planning on staying there so I would have 3 years before starting to travel. However an opportunity to go work with my wife in the OR (smaller hospital OR so she does every type of surgery as well as some PACU). It has me wondering if OR traveling isn't better for us in our situation. Will it be easier to keep my skills up in the OR compared to the ED with longer gaps between working? Also, will I be competent to travel with only 2 years in the OR?

Thanks for the reply, it's sort of what I expected to hear. Though is there a point where a hospital is so big that you get to niche in your department. For example I know that our hospital separates their OR nurses into several areas. So when you take a job you're not taking an "OR RN" job you're taking a GI OR job or a Colorectal OR job. So would you end up being so specialized that you're not marketable?

My wife has the opportunity to take an OR job at another hospital and would really like to go over there. The issue is that it's a smaller hospital. Our plan is to travel in 3 years to facilitate our sailing adventures. She currently has been an RN for 4 years (was a LPN for 4) with mostly med surg experience. So her question is; how good of experience does working in a smaller hospital (level 3 trauma, 65 beds med surg) that does just general surgery? Is she going to get good experience in a place like that compared to the mega hospital we work at how? (one of the top 5 hospitals in the country)

My city has hospitals that are a 1 and a level 4. My wife and I are looking to travel in 3 years and I would prefer to go back to the ED (I worked there as an ERT during nursing school) compared to my current department. My issue is that I currently work for the hospital that is a level one and don't particularly like it there. They are very large and very corporate and I feel like I'm totally expendable. Whereas I've heard great things about the other hospital (more relaxed atmosphere, etc). My concern is will working in a level 4 adequately prepare me to pick up travel nursing assignments in an ED after 3 years there?

So my wife and I are working on a 4 year plan to work seasonally (about 3 months give or take) and then sail the rest of the year. What do you guys think would be the specialties that would offer the most opportunities to do this? We aren't terribly concerned with making top dollar since our investments will fund our lifestyle for the most part. We are mainly looking for some extra spending cash (maybe a nicer boat) and to keep our licenses current for when we eventually decide to move back ashore. We also aren't terribly concerned with where we go geographically, we would choose better working conditions over desirable location. Right now I have experience in Radiology and my wife works as a med surg float. She wants to try something different and was thinking about the OR. I know the opportunities for Radiology will be very limited so I was thinking ICU or Cath Lab (I have a lot of procedure experience). Anyone have any other suggestions?

We would be forced to stay residents of Minnesota because we own several houses here (that would be about 1/2 of our income) and MN is one of those states that once they get their hooks into you they won't let you give up our residency because they want that sweet tax revenue. So the permanent residence wouldn't be an issue.

What does anyone know about Cruise ship nursing? It seems like you are allowed to bring a family member on board with you so if my wife and I both worked as nurses we could bring our 9 year old (at that time) daughter with us and it solves the problem of her having to spend months with the grandparents. It looks like those assignments are 6 months at a time so has anyone ever tried to do 6months on and 6months off?

I actually got curious enough to call Faststaff and the guy was very helpful. He said that it's actually more likely we would find better options at other places. He said since they tend to pay a premium for emergency placements they are getting the stuff that didn't get placed with other agencies. He said that they would definitely attempt to place us but because their postings are at premium pay that we would be competing with other nurses who potentially have been working full time. He said our best bet was to get signed on with several different agencies (including them) and if we aren't super picky about where we go it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

So my wife and I are both RN's and trying to finalize a plan that will allow us to sail most of the year. We wanted to travel nurse a bit to keep up our skills/licenses as well as supplement our income. I browsed through some of the listings on faststaff's website and most of them seem to say "1 year of recent (specialty) experience and 2 years of RN experience". So my question would be what exactly counts as recent. If we were to work a 3 month contract and then take 9 months off each year would that qualify?

Do you know any schools that do a DNAP without a BSN. All the ones in MN require a BSN specifically. I do have another degree but it's in marketing.

So I am about to finish my ADN and was planning on blitzing through my BSN (I already have a bachelors so it's only like 28 credits) while working and then applying to CRNA school. I was hoping to get in before the doctorate cut off. I went into nursing planning on becoming a CRNA from the beginning. I shadow at the hospital I work at with the CRNA's pretty regularly and I am a 4.0 so far. The problem is I hate nursing school, like I am miserable every day because of the extra stuff they add on. Such as papers about how important holistic medicine is, or interviewing local seniors to write papers about what cultural groups they identify with. So my question to you guys is, what is CNRA school like? Is it more hard science and skill's based (Like I would imagine PA or MD school would be like) or is it more like nursing school where we spend a very large chunk of time learning that we should be using guided imagery instead of pharmaceuticals to manage pain.