waitingfor

I agree with this. That's why as a traveler I left. I was in ICU and it was poorly managed. I had to wait 2 hours after night shift until they found a replacement to take my assignment because they were so short staffed. I didn't know it until 730 am when I was looking around for the nurse. The floor was so poorly run. There were so many unnecessary shifting of nurses and patients room around it made no sense. All ICU nurses are able to float in different ICUs. If they find an extra nurse to help anytime in the shift, if her home unit is this ICU they will change either a traveler or a nurse from a different ICU mid shift to the other ICU, so that nurse can work in her home unit, which is ridiculous. Then, there were this constant changing of patients to different rooms throughout the shift due to geography. Residents are rude, takes forever to arrive at bedside for urgent calls and then walk away without talking to you about the plan.

Thanks for your input. I took the assignment at Stanford and I as well as a few travelers were very disappointed. Coming from Hopkins I was particularly disappointed and quit.I was nicely surprised by El Camino Health though where I extended my contract. it would have probably been where I would apply to be staff . Calif was too expensive. I am now with Mayo clinic and they do offer pension.

I have my first travel assignment at Stanford in the MICU and I am so excited to work there after hearing all the good things. I enjoy teaching hospitals better. I worked at Johns Hopkins MICU as a new grad and Stanford appears to be giving similar experiences that I really enjoy at a teaching hospital. My pay package as a traveler is about the same as Stanford bedside nurses so I am not here to make money. I am from CA, this is more of a paid vacation and testing the waters before moving back. I would love to come on as permanent staff but how can Stanford nurses afford living in the area amd buying a house? Even if commuting further, housing in San Jose is expensive compared to the pay. Where are nurses with family (and not married to a tech mogul :) buying houses??