Urgent care/Primary care travel nurse?

[Lemon Bars]

I am interested in travel nursing, but almost all my six years experience is in primary care or urgent care clinics. I am an RN with a bachelors degree in nursing. I strongly dislike working in hospitals as a bedside nurse. Does anyone have experience working as a travel nurse in outpatient settings especially primary care or urgent care? I don't see nearly as many postings for these kind of jobs compared to hospital jobs but I do see some. Are there enough jobs for travel nurses outside the hospitals? Thanks for any advice!

[NedRN]

For virtually any setting where there are nurses, there are agency nurses. Travel contracts are usually a longer need like persistent staffing shortages, or short term like a pregnancy or personal leave. The number of postings for any specialty or setting depends on how many nurses work in them. You will always see the most postings for acute and long term care simply because more nurses work in those positions.

I'd suggest calling a few super large agencies, like American Mobile and Cross Country and ask recruiters about it. Could be hard, as such jobs are entry level.

I'm sure you have considered ED? Other than acuity, that is the job you are doing at urgent care. And many large hospitals have more than one stream in their emergency rooms, one of which is basically urgent care, not critical care. Still, they prefer more acute experience because travelers that can flex make staffing easier. If travel is the lifestyle you want, I'd consider ED and upgrading your skills and credentials as necessary. It is the perhaps the best specialty for travel as you can go anywhere from the smallest hospital (I've traveled to a 12 bed hospital) to 400 plus bed major city hospitals.

[Lemon Bars]

Thank you, NedRN. This is a very good suggestion as I do see postings for ER travelers all the time, much more so than Urgent Care or Primary Care. I just don't know if I can handle the speed and chaos of working in an ER. I'm a mellow person by nature, and I'm afraid it might not be a good fit for me. Nurses and doctors I've met who have significant ER experience all seem very Type A. I worked briefly as a medical scribe in an ER and I could not keep the pace at all. 

[NedRN]

I know a lot of mellow ER nurses. Calm is good in chaos. Your choice of course, but one last plug as I mentioned is that many EDs are streamed between acute and urgent. Doesn't hurt to check with agencies about possibly working urgent only. You won't be able really to trust a recruiter, but if it sounds promising, you can go through with the signup process and see how the manager interview goes. Project confidence, but be clear you are not ready for acute care. An agency may have several such assignments, so you can practice your interview technique and see if you find a fit as well.

I might mention that organizational and prioritization skills are super important. I sucked as a new grad in the OR because even though I did great in prior careers, none of them required these skills. It took a while, but I finally acquired them and did well. Not sure everyone can, but it can definitely be learned maybe by most.

 I've hung out in the ED at a number of assignments and the typical environment and typical personnel seems to be super relaxed and chill excepting perhaps a room with an active code or major trauma. Inner city hospitals can get crazy of course.