deie0383

Currently I am working in Florida which is my least paying assignment that I have taken. I only work in ICU and nights. I didn't have a hard time finding a job, but the other day I spoke with Amy my recruiter and she said that jobs are becoming hard to find. One thing that American Traveler does with their pay rates is they have lower hourly (taxable rate) but then you get about $39 a day that you don't pay taxes on and that is for seven days a week not just for the days you work. With that I acutally make $200 more a paycheck than if I took more hourly. As for making more working as agency I thought I was, but when I did my taxes last week I found that I didn't make more than I did last year when I wasn't traveling.

Hi, I work for American Traveler and have been for the past year. I have no complaints, my recruiter always gets back to me when I have questions and calls once a week to make sure everything is going ok. I have looked at other companies since I have been traveling to see if I am getting the best deal and what I have come across is that I am. I have never had my paycheck late like some of the other travelers that I have met and they are always correct. One thing that I have found with them is that once I sign a contract is I find out how much they would pay for housing then I search for apartments in that price range and I give them a list of the top 3 places I would like them to place me in. I have found that having them set me up somewhere is easier and this way I get some say in where I want to live. I personally like to have a place with a washer and dryer in the apartment and I have them provide a TV and a microwave since they can be hard to pack and tend to break with traveling long distances. I hope this may have helped and if you want to e-mail me directly I would be glad to give you any other advice.

I have never heard of you having to contact the manager for an interview. Acutally my company specifically tells you not to contact the hosptial, but to wait until they contact you. I was told that managers don't like being contacted by travelers and the last hospital I was at the manager even told me that she won't even return the calls of travelers that call her looking for a position.

I have refused to work alone, but this is a policy that they are implimenting and it is unsafe. The hospital feels that it is just fine, even the unit manager. JACHO is due to be stopping in anyday, but I have a feeling if they due show up then they will make sure there are two nurses on the unit. Do I send a copy of the new staffing guidelines to them so they can review it before they come?

Where in New York are you looking, are you looking in New York City or anywhere in New York State?

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any point of view would be helpful, so far this week there have been 5 nurses to resign making the staffing situation even worse.

I have said this on other posts, but I am not having trouble finding a job with the company I work for (American Traveler). Last month I called them and said what area I wanted and was given a list of 20 positions and multiple different hospitals. Florida is looking for people to start around Jan 15th. You might want to give it a try if you haven't already applied with them.

Check out the thread "Contract Tips" there is alot on information regarding this in there. Also check out the web site www.gsa.gov it lists how much tax free money you are allowed depending on what area you will be working in and as long as you don't go over that amount you can't be taxed on it.

I am currently working at a very small hospital where they are trying to cut costs by cutting staffing. The 8 bed ICU/CCU/Tele floor I am on rarely gets a true ICU/CCU patient, but in the past month they have come up with this staffing matrix that basically says to make a long story short: Up to 4 Tele patients = 1 nurse 1 ICU/CCU patient and 1 Tele patient = 1 nurse 2 ICU/CCU patients and no Tele patients = 1 nurse if there are any more than that then you get 2 nurses, but we aren't staffed with an aid and only from 7am to 11pm is there a secretary to answer the phones. I am a travel nurse, so I have the opportunity so put up more of a fight than the nurses who are employed at the hosptial full time. Does anyone else think this is extremely unsafe and who outside of the hospital should it get reported to?

I work for American Traveler and have been for the past year. They have been great to work with and I can always get in touch with someone immediately if I have a question at anytime of the day or night. Also I have been reading in other posts that people are having a hard time finding contracts recently, but American Traveler seems to have a ton of positions open all over the country.

I didn't think it was right, but in CT there isn't anything that says it can't be done. When I put up an arguement about it and called my travel company, I was told by the manager of the department that since we are right next door to the ER that we should be able to handle it and that one of the other departments like the lab and radiology and security would also be available to help us. But that doesn't calm my fears, what if I can't get to the phone to page someone and what about the narcs that need a witness to get out? I only have a week and a half left here and I am counting down the hours.

I work for American Traveler Staffing Professionals.

I am heading to New Port Richey in January. My company American Traveler offered me about 20 positions in Florida with start dates around the 5th and 13th of January. If you want the name of my recuriter let me know.

I have only been traveling for about a year and I only had 1.5 years experience right out of school in ICU. -If your scared of being away from your family find an assignment near family that you don't see often, for my first assignment I found a place within an hours drive of my cousin so I didn't feel so isolated from my family. -If your scared of not having the support from the other nurses you work with, don't be most of the people I have worked with treat you the same as they treat everyone else that they work with, remember your there to make their job easier if you weren't then thay would be working short. -If you don't like living alone get a dog or a cat I did after my first assignment. I found I didn't like comming home to an empty apartment and now I find her waiting at the door waging her tail. It is a great release after a terrible shift and she doesn't mind when I whine about a bad night. Also you meet some great people along the way. I am finishing up an assignment in the next two weeks and I am not looking forward to leaving the great friends that I have made in the short 13 weeks that I have been here. I found that if you can find a house that has multiple apartments in it with people your age if makes the time more enjoyable. The people in the other apartments in the house I live in now we eat dinner together at least once a week, we do things together on the weekends and I have envited them to visit me at my next assignment in Florida. My last assignment at 7am when we all got out of work we went to a local bar and had a few drinks and complained about our night. Ultimately, you make your travel assignment if you go into thinking that your all alone and start out depressed it isn't going to be any fun, but it can be the best experience of your life if you want it to be.

I know that Sharon Hospital in Sharon, CT is looking for nurses in all of their departments since I am here right now as a traveler, but they are having some problems. Their new staffing policy is horrible. For example, the ICU is a mix of ICU (most aren't true ICU patient) and tele, but if there is only 1 ICU patient and 3 tele patients then there is only one nurse on the floor with no aids and a secretary (no secretary at night). So if you are ok with no help if something goes wrong or even if you have a patient that requires more than one nurse to do adequate care then you should look somewhere else. They also have required that nurse work 12 hour shifts. I am currently leaving and unless their policy's change I won't be returning. But the staff and managers are great people to work with, and the managers do take their share of patient assignments.