Traveling Nursing

[vickiv13]

I will be graduating with my RN in December and I am strongly considering going into Traveling Nursing. I was wondering if it is better to get a job in the field I am interested in or if it is better to start on a medical floor to gain experience with everything?

[ierland]

I disagree with the year in med-surg being a waste of time. I'm L&D x 5 years, I did 3 years med-surg as new grad. (mostly because I loved my co-workers and got comfortable, had planed on one year.) I have had several incidents in the last 5 years on L&D where I was able to pull from my med-surg knowledge and actually save a potentially deadly situation, over nurses with more than double my experience in L&D (and these were exceptional nurses in their field). I work in a high-risk facility, our patients have all manner of underlying medical conditions complicating their pregnancies. Most of my co-workers have only ever done L&D, and although they are amazing, intelligent, exceptional nurses they do lack some versatility when it comes to strange, unexpected cases that seem to roll in every couple of months. You can do either with or without med-surg background you can still be a great nurse, but having that background gives me a versatility and confidence that more than one of my co-workers have expressed that they wished they had.

It also seems to put me high on the hire lists, or so I've been told.