808dreams

I started out in psych as well before becoming a nurse.....how interesting! I was 2 years into my BA in Psychology degree when I worked summers at a vascular surgeon's office and changed my major to nursing. I do love nursing and couldn't see myself doing anything else. I've been an RN for 8 years, completed my BSN in 2015, have worked in ortho, neuro, telemetry and PCU, and am now living my dream of being a travel nurse, currently working my first assignment in Hawaii!!!

I second this. I can literally handle any gross or gory task you can throw at me without batting an eyelash. But interpersonal relations with difficult family members gets under my skin far too often. It is my Nursing Kryptonite. And I find that the older I get, the less I care about keeping the peace with those kinds of people. Unfortunately in the current workplace that might get me fired someday....

Oncpalnurse, It seems like our lives are similar! I am also not "anchored" to my current city or job by kids or a spouse, and I too want to pursue an NP degree in the future. I have decided to actively pursue travel nursing at this time, as it has always been a dream of mine. I have a few more years of nursing experience under my belt, and I can tell you that I had the same dilemma when choosing what step to take next. But life happens, and if you have a curiosity for travel nursing, now is the right time for you! Later on you may meet someone, have kids, and want to settle down. Travel nursing will still be possible then but it will be more difficult to navigate. Another bonus of putting off school a bit more is that you'll gain more nursing experience and that will make you a stronger candidate for NP school. You can also hopefully save up more money from Travel nursing to put towards your advanced degree later. Best of luck in what you decide!! This must be an exciting time for you :)

If your long-term goal is to do travel nursing, ICU is definitely in demand. I am currently trying to become a travel nurse, I have 7 years of telemetry experience and I can gell you that in my own job hunt I have seen a lot of demand for ICU experience. They also stand to make a bit more money than I will in travel nursing. Good luck!

Thanks for the insider info, I grew up in Maryland and would love to do some travel nursing there now as an adult. I don't really know the Baltimore area at all though, so thanks for this thread and the info on Johns Hopkins

Great topic!! My first code was back in nursing school, I worked as a nursing assistant and I got to watch a man in his 80s being coded. He did not make it. What was memorable to me was the fact that he literally projectile vomited and projectile diarrheaed black stuff everywhere during the code. So it was a short code and it was obvious he was dead very soon. I'll never forget it. As I recall, it was one of those cases where the family was fighting against making the poor guy a DNR....

Thanks for the tip! I'll look into airbnb

How cool! Yeah I've personally never been, but I've dreamed about it since I was in high school.....and it's finally time, with my nursing career I can go live there!!! Thank you, I am super excited.

I suppose that is very true. They may have had people starting in December than they had to focus on. Thankfully I applied to 5 agencies yesterday and I spoke with a recruiter today, have lots of paperwork completed. Will review the offer tonight and speak with recruiter tomorrow. He is moving very quickly and has been highly responsive. Just what I feel comfortable with. Best of luck on your search!

I am not going to Texas but I will be checking out airbnb for housing when I get home tonight

Good afternoon, I wondered if anyone has any experience finding housing near Queens medical center in Honolulu. If you've been a travel nurse there, do you have any tips for good areas, areas to avoid etc? Also any experience with rental car in Hawaii, any suggested rental car company? First time traveler. Thank you so much!

Thanks for the insight. Yeah I definitely expressed and interest in being submitted, prior to the Thanksgiving Holiday. Monday after Thanksgiving I reached out again, we spoke and he said he would get me postings and he never did. He verbally said, I will get you the list and you can review it. I will call you to follow up later today. This happened on two occasions before and after the holiday and he never followed through. So I gave him a couple of days and called and emailed to follow up then waited over a week to hear back. He didn't call again until yesterday. I don't feel that it would take that long to get together a listing of offers and some compensation packages. But I could be wrong. Either way I will keep my options open and pursue other recruiters at this time.

Hi, first of all thanks everyone for your posts on here. I am brand new to the travel world, hoping to start my first assignment mid-january. I have been reading all the posts on the travel nursing board here, and I am heeding the advice to be selective when it comes to recruiters. My personal experience has been that I signed up to one agency and was communicating well until he simply stopped responding to emails and voicemail for over a week. Based on the advice I spent all day yesterday signing up and calling 5 other agencies. Phew!! I can say it is a lot of work, but I hope it will pan out into a job! Do you guys agree I did the right thing? My gut tells me 1 week is way too long to not hear back from a recruiter, even initially. So although he reached out to me yesterday, I decided not to call him back and just move on. Thoughts?

Thanks, this is an interesting tip and I will give it a try :)