Travel Nurses Who Started with less than 2 years experience

[Soliloquy]

Anyone RNs here who started travel nursing with less than 2 years experience? What was your experience like as a travel RN?

[NedRN]

How exactly will someone feel comfortable knowing their skills and abilities are adequate until they try it? Yes, if you are entry level medsurg and you get a decent assignment, less than two years is fine. But imagine going from 5 patients at a well staffed hospital with nursing aides to 10 with no help at a new hospital where you don't know the patient flow, population, or software and have almost no orientation. That happens all the time and is more likely to happen to first time travelers, and it is a big fail. Even very experienced travelers may think they can handle floating every four hours and find they cannot when they get to such an assignment (not that you always get a heads up in interviews of environments like that).

So please tell us how a nurse who has only worked at one hospital can be sure that they are ready for travel? What is the alternative to experience as an objective measure for the newer nurse?

I can answer that question as I have many times before. Test your experience by working per diem at other hospitals. I did just that prior to traveling, but I can tell you that my eyes were opened when I actually started traveling. I'm operating room and I can tell you that the number of ways to do the same surgery is staggering. I was very happy I took a full three years at a large teaching hospital rotating through all the services. That breadth of experience has served me well. And I'm a very fast learner and adaptor (good abilities for traveler) so those with just average skills should make sure their skills are well grounded before becoming a hired gun.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live in an area where per diem is possible at local hospitals of course. But before giving up the security of a staff job and benefits, a newer nurse should try hard to validate skills somewhere else, even if it means going a few hundred miles away. If you work at a tiny hospital with low acuity and patient mix, a nurse will be better served generally by working at a larger hospital for a year before traveling.

Sure you can get lucky as you say you have, but it is not good advice generally.

[K_girl]

I started with one year. I worked on a surgical unit but was frequently floated within the hospital including pediatrics and intermediate. I got my first assignment to a magnet hospital in their pediatric unit. The staff was awesome and taught me a lot as I dealt with some things I was not exposed to before.

Unfortunately I worked with another travel nurse there who had worked for years as a nicu/peds nurse who had some issues with drip rates and setting up tpn.

Good luck!

[Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP]

Thanks for the input k_girl. Idk how travel nursing will work for me and I won't know until I try. But I am looking forward it. My biggest concern was that I wouldn't get an assignment at all. But we will see.