Where does my experience fit?

[introspectiveRN]

Hello there and thank you in advance for taking the time to read and (hopefully) reply to my post.

I am a newby nurse with appx 1.5 years experience. I worked med/surg for four months and then received a fantastic job offer as a hospice nurse case manager. The first six months was a whale of a learning curve as the job has an extreme amount of autonomy and responsibility. I haver really grown to love it. Although my job's the bomb, one of my original goals was to travel. My daughters and I have lived in the same small southern town for their whole lives but we are truly gypsies at heart. We're feelin' froggy!

My idea is to get a job through a local agency as a "travel" nurse at some local facilities to get my feet wet as there is very little (if any) orientation to the area where you will work when you are a traveller. My only caveat is that I really disliked med/surg.

My question is what area of nursing offers the most travel posts and opportunities and where do I fit base on prior experience. I have solid documentation experience as a case manager (maybe would fit OR), triage experience including phone triage (maybe would fit ER). I have wound care experience and critical care (we are an open access hospice so we take pts c vents/PEG tubes/TPN/ etc.). I really need to bulk up my level of experience before I hit the big leagues. I went to an excellent nursing school that gave me lots of opportunities but, well, that was nursing school.

Where would you all recommend and what would you recommend as my next step?

THANK YOU

[OkieICU_RN]

Well, a questions for you.....

In the hospice job you are doing now, are you doing home visits or is it an inpatient hospice?

Generally speaking, one has to have a minimum of a year in a given specialty area to do travel nursing. The OR is out if you have never worked in OR. Honestly, probably ER and ICU are out too. I've not done ER, but I'm sure you have to have multiple certificiations: TNCC, ACLS, PALS, ENPC, CATN just to name a few and know how to do all the steps in those certifications. In ICU, you have a start on some of those skills with vented patients but you also have to have ACLS as a minimum, not to mention being able to titrate multiple drips, work with invasive lines (Swans, art lines, etc.), comfortable with heart monitors, sometimes balloon pump experience and recovering open hearts are required skills.

I would say if you are at an inpatient hospice, you probably could do med-surg travel (even though you hated it). Or, you may have to pick what interests you and go back to the hospital, get a year of training and then hit the road!