Travel RN ICU/PACU

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Specializes in Medical ICU, PACU.

Hello all! I know there have been posts about this, but I need your opinion!

I have always been interested in travel nursing- I LOVE to travel and would be willing to work lots to do so :) So it just seems like a perfect opportunity.

By the time I would start, I would have 1.5 years Medical ICU/CCU experience, and a little under a year of outpatient PACU experience. How do you feel about this? Do you think it's enough to travel? I've been an EMT for 7 years (which I know hospitals don't care about), but I have more medical experience than just this last year or so, so I am fairly confident about my skills. My dilemma is that I come from a smaller community hospital. I am comfortable with what we do there, but we don't have open heart/transplants, etc. obviously, and it's rare that we use CVP monitoring or a-lines, which I know is essential for most larger hospital ICU's. I have lots of experience with patients out of the cath lab, but none with balloon pumps and we do not pull our own sheaths. That being said, I am confident with shock, vents, insulin drips, post-op pts, chest tubes, acls, etc.

Do I have enough experience to travel? Or will I be a lost puppy? Is outpatient PACU enough experience to consider in-hospital PACU as well?

I just feel like if I am ever going to do it, now is the time! But I don't want it to end up being an experience I regret!

What are your thoughts?!

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Of course you could do a travel assignment in a similar working environment, but you options may be severely limited. Why not do a bit of career development and travel at the same time by taking a staff job for a year in a new place at a bigger hospital?

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Specializes in Medical ICU, PACU.
Of course you could do a travel assignment in a similar working environment, but you options may be severely limited. Why not do a bit of career development and travel at the same time by taking a staff job for a year in a new place at a bigger hospital?

If I don't decide to do travel nursing right now, then that is exactly my plan! :)

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