What Is a Travel Nurse?
Do you like traveling, enjoying new work experiences in various locations, and meeting new people? If your answer is yes, it could be time to think about becoming a travel nurse.
The role of a travel nurse allows you to help people in need, provides satisfactory earnings, and enables you to construct a resume that details a variety of professional experiences at medical facilities. In addition, it is the perfect combination between enjoying traveling to various locations and helping the different cases of patients.
If you consider yourself to be a good fit for this combination but are still wondering ''What is a travel nurse?'' stay with us to find out!
What Is a Travel Nurse?
Travel nurses are registered nurses (RNs) who work in clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare centers around the world on a temporary basis. They are temporarily allocated to various care areas to fill in short-term employment gaps. In addition, travel nurses have a variety of clinical backgrounds, and they work for independent staffing companies.
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Travel nursing developed as a specialty in response to a nationwide nursing shortage. Hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities had open positions, and patients were in need of care. Because of these shortfalls, healthcare institutions have vacant positions that must be filled, and travel nurses are frequently the ones to fill them.
Travel nurses not only work in the medical field in any state in the country, but they also work as international travel nurses outside of the United States.
What Do Travel Nurses Do?
As mentioned previously, a travel nurse, frequently employed by a staffing agency, mainly works short-term on various limited-staff hospitals in cities across the country and, on rare occasions, abroad. Travel nurses are typically responsible for supplying treatment and instant care to patients, administering medication, assisting in various tasks, preparing meals, and performing other duties as delegated by the supervising colleague. Furthermore, in order to work efficiently as a travel nurse, one must quickly become acquainted with the surroundings and colleagues.
Other tasks that travel nurses are likely to perform in their roles include:
Managing critically ill trauma patients, including vent management, ICP monitoring, and CRRT
Providing critical care nursing to multiple high-acuity ICU patients until beds become available
Monitoring and further assisting in the stabilization of elective and/or urgent surgical patients on the floor following their post-operative, post-PACU admission
Managing bedside care per doctor's orders, including medication administration, patient safety, ADL assistance, and so on
Organizing and managing regular clinics involving outside physicians such as ophthalmology, ENT, Med/Surg, orthopedics, and podiatry
Staffing in the emergency unit who specializes in trauma, chest pain, congestive heart failure, and stroke.
Working in both the MICU and the SICU
Interacting and managing appropriate ACLS interventions/medications during code blue and emergency situations
Helping physicians with patient trauma procedures in a demanding hospital-level II trauma emergency room, etc.
How Do You Become a Travel Nurse?
Travel nurses take on different responsibilities in various locations; therefore, they must always be prepared for anything along the road. To become a successful travel nurse, you need to meet specific educational requirements, get certified, and gain the required amount of experience.
Educational requirements
While a diploma or an associate's degree in nursing may be sufficient for many nursing positions, typically, the degree needed to be a travel nurse is a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). A BSN degree generally takes a minimum of four years to complete, though many schools offer RN-to-BSN programs for nurses with an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN). Students who have a bachelor's degree in a field other than nursing can usually transfer some credits toward an accelerated BSN program.
Furthermore, before taking the examinations and certifications required to become a registered nurse, all nursing students must complete a period of supervised clinical work.
Certification requirements
After earning your associate's or bachelor's degree in nursing, you'll be ready to take the National Council Licensure Exam NCLEX-RN, which is needed to become a registered nurse in the United States.
After you take and successfully pass the NCLEX exam and meet the requirements of your state's board of nursing, you can become a registered nurse. The next step is to gain enough experience in your nursing specialty to pursue opportunities as a traveling nurse.
In addition, to work as a flight nurse, you must be licensed in the state where you live. Fortunately, the Nursing Licensure Compact (NLC) is a state-to-state agreement that allows registered nurses to hold only one nursing license that is valid in multiple states.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing monitors which states have enacted and implemented the NLC. If you live in a state which is a member of the NLC, you can obtain this multistate license in your home state. If you do not live in a compact state, you must obtain your license in the state where you intend to work. Because the NLC does not cover the entire country, make sure to check your state's licensing requirements before becoming a travel nurse.
Experience
Before you can work for a travel nursing agency, you'll need to be certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Basic Life Support (BLS), in addition to state licensing.
In addition, you may need to gain additional certification if you decide to specialize in a particular field. Most positions require a minimum of two years of experience in your nursing specialty, whether it's surgical, critical care, neonatal, pediatrics, trauma, or a clinical nurse with multiple specialties. The two years of nursing experience also allow you to obtain a specialization in your area of expertise if you choose to take the certification exam. This will also increase your marketability for more opportunities.
Your clinical experience will determine which positions you are qualified for as a travel nurse. Hospitals are always looking for experienced, in-demand nurses with specific specializations and advanced training.
What Skills Does a Travel Nurse Need?
Besides the educational requirements, certifications, and experience, travel nurses must also develop the abilities to learn new systems quickly, accept criticism, and adapt to change.
In addition, travel nurses need to possess a specific set of skills in order to succeed in the field. The skills that help travel nurses on the job include:
The ability to learn quickly: Travel nurses have all worked in traditional nursing settings, but they must be able to draw on their various knowledge foundations as they adapt to the new healthcare facilities. Several health centers have different practice standards and technologies to learn; therefore, travel nurses must rapidly adopt new processes and technologies.
Flexibility: Travel nurses are free to set their own work schedules with the organizations for which they work. They, for example, might work for nine weeks on the other side of the country and then take a month off.
Adaptability in difficult situations: The combination of moving to different states, constantly being the "new nurse", and caring for difficult patients presents numerous challenges. In addition, travel nurses must adapt to various organizations and care teams, which is often tricky when those organizations and groups lack adequate resources to function correctly.
Excellent communication and critical thinking skills: Travel nurses must be able to communicate effectively with patients and ask pertinent questions. In addition, thinking critically is a must since nurses of all types face complex problems and must find solutions.
Passion for traveling: Finally, it may seem obvious, but traveling nurses will be on the road a lot! So, a passion for travel and a sense of adventure is highly required for this job position.
Travel Nurse Job Outlook and Salary
Since the position of a travel nurse was initially created to fill in staff shortages in the healthcare industry, and these shortages take place frequently, this role is constantly offering new job opportunities.
The future of the profession as a travel nurse is very bright! During the next decade, the career of a travel nurse is expected to grow by 12%, creating 371,500 new job opportunities across the United States.
When it comes to earnings, the average traveling nurse salary is $82,639 per year or $39.73 per hour in the United States. Travel nurses on the lower end of that spectrum, the bottom 10%, earn around $56,000 per year, while the top 10% make $121,000.
One of the main factors that affect a travel nurse's salary is the location where they work. Some states provide very satisfactory earnings meanwhile others tend to pay less. Traveling nurse salaries are highest in Hawaii, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Conclusion
With all that has been said, establishing a career as a travel nurse might be interesting if you want to take on new responsibilities, meet new people, travel to new places, and continue to learn about healthcare in other communities. In addition, this career has a great job outlook and provides satisfactory earnings; therefore, it can be an excellent opportunity for those who want to join the medical field.