Argo

How new of an RN are you? I haven't seen any place consider prior experience, your career starts the day after your nursing license is active. Most likely the agencies will need 1 year to place you. Some place may be desperate and be willing to take you with less. If you have an offer, I would take it and get your year of service in...

Unfortunately for you, Ned is right. Metro where. SF, LA, SAC, Redding??? They vary, widely. Every hospital can vary daily also, if they have a critical fast fill position it can skyrocket. There isnt a good answer for what you want. You can make from 1200 - 3000 a week. Do your own math and average that, it doesnt matter though because the average is way off.

Your question and rebuttal question are both pretty ridiculous. Unless you work 6 days a week doing 12 hour shifts, you will never do that as a med surg nurse. I have done $4300 net a week in pedi OR, on 36 hours. But you're 'just' med surg.

Pick hospitals that are within your skill set and be honest about what you can do. You cant fake it if you have never done a liver transplant or an alif/tlif/xlif. Can you give more insight into what insight you want?

Neds original reply is spot on. I have followed different specialties of travel for 20 years and OR has been the one consistently paying well and needing nurses through that period.

Yes, i do this regularly. Just talk through it up front when submitting as well as interviewing.

A contract is great as long as you hold them to paying it. I got out of a 10 week contract at 5 weeks. The hospital ended up paying me out for the whole amount because of how they worded the separation. I didnt ask for it, i just kept getting payed and found out why a couple weeks later when it seemed fishy. I had a solid contract, they worded it as if they broke it. That let me realize that if a hospital actually did break the contract for no good legal reason, they have to pay. It may have to go to court and not be worth it for a week or 2 worth of pay but for a few or more weeks at $3000 a week, worth it.

I usually pay for nothing, or the least I can, and get a copy of everything right at the time of service. I have never had a PA or MD(their cna) turn me down for the copies. This includes all physicals, labs, tb quant, mask fit, drug tests.... they email the labs to me from lab corp and the local clinics. All that being said, notice I say usually. Occasionally I have paid and been reimbursed later.

Everything Ned said is true. 2 years would also be my minimum suggestion unless you had prior experience thats applicable. You rarely see pedi only ORs looking for travelers, quite a few want pedi experience though. Id hit an adult OR and get a year there then hit the road. There is a lot more to learn on the older people..... Im one of the rare ones that has not taken call as a traveller, 4+ years traveling...

My bill rate was $113 - $127 in SF.

This isnt always true, I am sure your just giving your usual troll type response but I will elaborate for klone since it was an honest question. Agencies submit to the HR dept, usually someone that specifically deals with agency. The nurse manager of the dept doesn't always get to see the submissions. If they are desperate and have one or two submissions they just set up the contract. Sometimes agencies take on travellers with under a year of experience or fresh out of school. I saw these profiles come across my desk in my years as a director and just shook my head at them and tossed them in the trash. Basically there could be failures on both ends. I would bet that this hospital had something interfering with the original plans that required the traveler staffing request and came up with a reason to cancel. Either that or the 2 years experience wasnt enough for them to be happy with the skill set... Being a traveler can be hard, especially the first couple of times out of the box. I have had one bad experience in 4 years, it was 5 weeks into a contract early this year. I got cancelled early for erroneous reasons and they had to pay out my contract, 8 weeks remained....

1 year for basic floor type nursing. 2 years for specialty nursing(OR, ER, Cath Lab, ICU).... thats what you are usually required. Some people are never comfortable with travel type of work though.

Id stay staff given the known future. You have benefits and paid time off. When the baby is born and you're both doing good then go for it.

"Anyhow, I'm growing tired of the travel nursing thing anyway and am seriously thinking of pulling the plug on this gig and going perm somewhere else." I think this statement is the key of your entire post. Once you get to a certain point of burnout everything is an order of magnitude worse. Personally, I would stick it out and find permanent placement to start after the assignment and a couple weeks off.

Ill take my tax attorney and CPAs advice on these matters. They both fall in line with Ned and ms interpret.... Also nothing has changed for me with the 'new' tax code since Idont itemize and wont as a paid employee traveling nurse. It probably has not changed for most travellers since the majority are not 1099.