The Age Old Question: When Should I Start Traveling

[JuicyJ95, BSN, RN]

Usually I am here hoping to offer advice, now I suppose I am here to seek it. So, little bit of background. I have been a nurse for, about 4 years. I started 1 year in a Stepdown/Telemetry Unit (Lvl III), then I did 1 1/2 years as a MICU/SICU float pool (Lvl II; Teaching facility), and now I am at about the year mark in a CVICU (Lvl I; Teaching; Magnet; University). I would like to start to just formulate how traveling would work. I feel that while I may be a jack of many trades, I would prefer CVICU, though I do love a good MICU. That said, my previous job as a MICU/SICU float I seen alot of the same cardiovascular cases as I do now in CV, though we also dealt with trauma. So, CABGs, valve repairs, SWANs, IABP, Impella, ECMO, Etc. were nothing new to me coming into the CVICU role, however now we've added VA ECMO, Heart Transplants, AAA, and a few other cardiac specific procedures. I guess my question is, do I still wait till I have 2 years of CVICU experience, or would they consider my previous SICU experience as well..

I would also like to mention I AM NOT TRYING TO CHEAT MY WAY INTO TRAVEL NURSING. I DO NOT MIND WAITING, I am just curious as to what others would do in my position. I do not want to be in over my head, that's for sure. Though, the thoughts of traveling and seeing the country, seeing how other hospitals do things, maybe even getting a chance to visit some of the biggest/best CVICU's in the country... It is all very captivating. 

[Nurse Alexa, MSN, RN]

I would wait until you have a little more experience. For example, I had 6 years experience in critical care before traveling. While some traveling sites will assist you, I have worked at a majority of them in which you are very much on your own.

You need to be confident in your own skills, so if help is minimal you'll be able to do well still and perform the best care.

Being a Jack of all trades in critical care - will make you an asset to travel nursing. I would stick out about another year, so you can really have that strong foundation before you go out on your own. In the end, it is still your choice.

Hope this helps ? 

[JuicyJ95, BSN, RN]

Nurse Alexa said:

I would wait until you have a little more experience. For example, I had 6 years experience in critical care before traveling. While some traveling sites will assist you, I have worked at a majority of them in which you are very much on your own.

You need to be confident in your own skills, so if help is minimal you'll be able to do well still and perform the best care.

Being a Jack of all trades in critical care - will make you an asset to travel nursing. I would stick out about another year, so you can really have that strong foundation before you go out on your own. In the end, it is still your choice.

Hope this helps ? 

Thank you so much Alexa, 

I wan thinking the same thing. My overall goal is to see the country, eat all the food I can, get some money to put into property, and BE A GREAT NURSE. So, I want to be sure that I have the great foundation in order to be a great nurse for my patients, my coworkers, and the facility I work for. I feel these things cannot be rushed. Besides, I am about 6 months from being able to get my CSC and CMC anyway, so those would be great to add to the resume as well. Thank you again for the advice. 

[NedRN]

More credentials are always good. Ultimately you are competing with other travelers for the best assignments. Best is a balance of location, compensation, and sometimes prestige. Your ability to compete against nurses with more experience, and nurses with successfully completed travel assignments is a process. 

Right now, there are tons of unfilled assignments which means you could start traveling earlier than the usual recommendations. You are covered by your skills checklists, your manager interview, and your ability to turn down assignments when you don't believe you can deliver safe care. Hospitals will take you with a lower skill set so something you can consider. But when you feel comfortable clinically of course.

Also don't set your expectations too high. Some units will never give you a fresh heart or tough case, and others you may have to prove yourself capable and trustworthy over time. In other units, they may be trying to build some depth in their staff and you will be the resource. 

I personally believe in getting the most comprehensive specialty training before traveling and it has served me well over 25 years of travel, Keeping up with advances in tech, new procedures, and best practices is fairly easy when starting with a good knowledge and practice base. I did some per dorm at other hospitals before traveling. Having only worked at one hospital, I wanted to see if my skills would translate to other hospitals. This can also help you determine if you can quickly adapt to very new environments. While it turned out that I was pretty good at that, it was staggering at first how different hospitals can be from each other.

[JuicyJ95, BSN, RN]

NedRN said:

More credentials are always good. Ultimately you are competing with other travelers for the best assignments. Best is a balance of location, compensation, and sometimes prestige. Your ability to compete against nurses with more experience, and nurses with successfully completed travel assignments is a process. 

Right now, there are tons of unfilled assignments which means you could start traveling earlier than the usual recommendations. You are covered by your skills checklists, your manager interview, and your ability to turn down assignments when you don't believe you can deliver safe care. Hospitals will take you with a lower skill set so something you can consider. But when you feel comfortable clinically of course.

Also don't set your expectations too high. Some units will never give you a fresh heart or tough case, and others you may have to prove yourself capable and trustworthy over time. In other units, they may be trying to build some depth in their staff and you will be the resource. 

I personally believe in getting the most comprehensive specialty training before traveling and it has served me well over 25 years of travel, Keeping up with advances in tech, new procedures, and best practices is fairly easy when starting with a good knowledge and practice base. I did some per dorm at other hospitals before traveling. Having only worked at one hospital, I wanted to see if my skills would translate to other hospitals. This can also help you determine if you can quickly adapt to very new environments. While it turned out that I was pretty good at that, it was staggering at first how different hospitals can be from each other.

Hey Ned, 

Thank you for the feedback! I definitely don't have my expectations TOO high, but I do think I could be a valuable resource to many hospital systems. Plus, as much as nursing is a passion of mine. I've learned to really enjoy my free time, and I am excited to see new places. If I had to be honest, aside from the experience that's probably the biggest driving factor to want to travel nurse. I definitely want to be the best resource I can be, so I think waiting another year to really hone in on the cardiac aspect of ICU would be best. Though I do hear from all the travelers at my current facility that they haven't had a true CVICU patient in YEARS. HAHA, I sure hope that's not the case! 

[coldcutcourt]

ROFLLLLLLLLLL.  I can't believe the responses on here telling you to wait.  You have PLENTY of experience! GO NOW.  Do not wait a minute more!  Who knows how long this good travel pay will last.  I got my training at a level one trauma center and had exactly one and a half years in the Neuro ICU and when the pandemic happened, I split right away. I went to Houston Methodist Hospital on their CVICU and their CICU (never worked in cardiac before) and I did fine!  If you come from a magnet hospital or a teaching hospital or a level one trauma center you are good to go. They told me on my very first travel assignment that I was one of the best travel nurses they had!! I had only been a nurse for a year and a half at that point.

 

Do you know how many people come from BFE hospitals and travel? Not really dealt with vented patients all that much? dude. You got this.  Get that money. The economy is about to crash. The time is NOW.  Or, be a slave. Your choice.  Don't chose poverty. Value yourself and your skills more. 

[NedRN]

I'd like to point out that there are super nurses, average nurses, and those that will only ever be good enough to retain their staff jobs. A combination of you apparently belonging in the first (rather small group if you look around any unit), traveling when hospitals would take any warm blooded nurse with a license, and a hospital that gave you a well above average opportunity to grow and the support needed to excel. A rare story of ability and luck. 

There are a lot more stories out there of poorly prepared or low ability travelers getting fired on their first assignment. That's a life haunting experience that is too embarrassing to be reported commonly on social media but I've heard quite a few and even personally witnessed some.

Yes, lots of stories out there of even sub par nurses making serious money the last few years. Those stories will continue as the worldwide nursing shortage is not getting any better, the pandemic is not showing any signs of being over, and money aside, it is pretty difficult to convince less greedy career seekers into a life of overwork, stress, and low respect that is a nurse's lot.

 

For a dedicated traveler, the money will always be there. Although it is fair to say in many parts of the country, a staff nurse is in the same place at retirement as a traveler. Probably not the nurses from the South which is why they are a plurality of all travelers. I've made terrific money the last 25 years as a traveler but money should never be the first reason to choose travel (other than those nurses from poorly paid areas), and it wasn't mine. Money alone is almost never a good reason to choose a career path, but some are in a fortunate position to improve compensation after they pick a life path. 
 

Finally, extending a staff job to get extra experience is wise for most travelers. It prepares you to take advantage of learning opportunities while traveling to stay on top of your specialty. You heard the comment related by travelers in the OPs unit and also mentioned by me that many units will not let you practice on tough cases. So a staff job may be the only place where most can gain that experience while being safely mentored and in serviced. Then you are more prepared when those skills are actually needed one day on assignment. 
 

Just a note about this post: I don't mean to dismiss non ambitious nurses from considering travel. While I think travel nurses as a group are more rounded than typical staff nurses because they have obviously seen a wider range of practices, most of them are averagely competent just like staff nurses (plus the quick adapting skills they need to survive). Hospitals are OK with average, and a travelers can simply make careful assignment choices and stay in their lane of experience and competence for their entire travel career successfully, whether short or long term. 

[JuicyJ95, BSN, RN]

NedRN said:

I'd like to point out that there are super nurses, average nurses, and those that will only ever be good enough to retain their staff jobs. A combination of you apparently belonging in the first (rather small group if you look around any unit), traveling when hospitals would take any warm blooded nurse with a license, and a hospital that gave you a well above average opportunity to grow and the support needed to excel. A rare story of ability and luck. 

There are a lot more stories out there of poorly prepared or low ability travelers getting fired on their first assignment. That's a life haunting experience that is too embarrassing to be reported commonly on social media but I've heard quite a few and even personally witnessed some.

Yes, lots of stories out there of even sub par nurses making serious money the last few years. Those stories will continue as the worldwide nursing shortage is not getting any better, the pandemic is not showing any signs of being over, and money aside, it is pretty difficult to convince less greedy career seekers into a life of overwork, stress, and low respect that is a nurse's lot.

 

For a dedicated traveler, the money will always be there. Although it is fair to say in many parts of the country, a staff nurse is in the same place at retirement as a traveler. Probably not the nurses from the South which is why they are a plurality of all travelers. I've made terrific money the last 25 years as a traveler but money should never be the first reason to choose travel (other than those nurses from poorly paid areas), and it wasn't mine. Money alone is almost never a good reason to choose a career path, but some are in a fortunate position to improve compensation after they pick a life path. 
 

Finally, extending a staff job to get extra experience is wise for most travelers. It prepares you to take advantage of learning opportunities while traveling to stay on top of your specialty. You heard the comment related by travelers in the OPs unit and also mentioned by me that many units will not let you practice on tough cases. So a staff job may be the only place where most can gain that experience while being safely mentored and in serviced. Then you are more prepared when those skills are actually needed one day on assignment. 
 

Just a note about this post: I don't mean to dismiss non ambitious nurses from considering travel. While I think travel nurses as a group are more rounded than typical staff nurses because they have obviously seen a wider range of practices, most of them are averagely competent just like staff nurses (plus the quick adapting skills they need to survive). Hospitals are OK with average, and a travelers can simply make careful assignment choices and stay in their lane of experience and competence for their entire travel career successfully, whether short or long term. 

Well stated. My goals to travel are more career oriented. I would love to see how all the hospitals do things differently. That said, I am not willing to sacrifice my character nor my reputation as a professional by jumping in too early. When I came from the MICU to the CVICU it was a pretty big culture shock. In fact, I'm still not sure I have quite tightened my reins the way they want me to (I have a few charges who "do not like my carefree attitude".) That said, no patients have been harmed in the making of this career.

I really do enjoy the polar opposite viewpoints in this post though, obviously part of me feels I can handle most things thrown at me, though there's a sliver of a doubt that says "what if they can you and send you home with your tail between your legs". I suppose, only time will tell. 

[NedRN]

I think any change of units even in the same hospital can result in culture shock. I see a lot of cultural differences between CVICUs in different hospitals, ranging from intense focus (nurses still on a steep learning curve) to quiet competence. 
 

Trust among peers would seem to me to be a major component of a CVICU. 
 

By the way, should you ever get bored with the CVICU, I've heard cardiac cath nurses describe their job as CVICU (where they often come from) on steroids!