Thinking about Travel Nursing

[Bwise3487]

I am thinking about becoming a travel nurse and not sure where to begin. Ive been in the medical field for 30 yrs, the last 6 being an RN. I work in a rural hospital in Ohio, starting with Med-surg, worked in pre/post endoscopy, and helped start up Diagnostic only Cath lab working pre/post and occasionally circulating and ICU. Our hospital is only a 50 bed facility and truthfully our ICU is very limited as most critical patients are shipped to much bigger sister hospital. My concerns are how to get started, and do I have enough experience to land some assignments. Any suggestions. My husband wants to retire and explore different places around the country with me. I am 52 and in great physical shape so feel I can handle long hours and traveling and eventually will settle somewhere that we discover we love. Any suggestions, just really scared to take the plunge, is there a way to see if this is something I can do? My husband hates the winter weather and would uproot us tomorrow if we could!

[devulms21]

I'm looking into travel nursing as well. I've lived in SW Iowa now NW Missouri all my life. I've been trying to decide if I should take my first assignment "close" to home or just go anywhere. I'm really thinking about California. I would be going alone. I don't have any suggestions but just wanted to say I'm right there with ya! Its overwhelming.

[NedRN]

To Sadie47: Do you live close enough to a large city to try some per diem shifts? That will give you a good indication if you can adapt quickly and what sort of specialty you should focus on. Sometimes rural hospitals that let you do it all give you strengths that can land you jobs - especially at small hospitals that need staffing flexibility. For example, recovering endo is certainly valuable. Both endoscopy and cath lab are really short (hot jobs) so you might be able to land a learning assignment with less than recommended.

[Bwise3487]

NedRN we live about an hour from any larger hospitals and I have thought about trying to do per diem assignments thanks for the comments!

[wanderlust99]

I have seen several positions lately for endoscopy and cath lab, in CA and WA, where I'm looking for jobs. I think you would be well suited for them. I haven't worked in either areas, but I do know a couple endoscopy positions were willing to hire someone with just critical care experience (no actual endoscopy experience) so I'd think you'd be very appealing to them.