Nurses gain experience through travel

Have you dreamed of lounging on a sandy beach in the winter?

Maybe you prefer a trip through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or a wine tasting event in Napa Valley.

Those kinds of day trips are common for nurses who travel for their career.

“Sometimes the best assignments are the ones they didn’t expect to take,” said Mary Kay Hull, vice president of recruitment nurses, American Traveler Staffing Professionals, Boca Raton, Fla. “I don’t think we ever put a nurse in Kansas City that didn’t love it.”

For 10 years Hull has placed nurses for 13-week medical assignments in small towns, urban centers, teaching facilities, Indian reservations, border towns and wilderness towns across the nation. Hawaii, California, Alaska and Florida rank among nurses top picks.

“They really can get varied experiences,” Hull said. “There are unusual places all over the U.S.”

Hull’s recruiters find what their clients want vocationally and geographically, then work to make the match. She said nurses who apply with her agency must be RNs with one year’s experience in acute care. When a decision is made, the travel agency acts as the employer, providing payroll, benefits, housing and travel licensure, and reimbursement.

Hull said professionals pursue travel nursing for a variety of reasons. They might want to experience a different clinical setting, travel to see the country, visit family, move with their spouse’s career or travel as a retirement activity.

“The reasons run the gamut,” she said. “You can see a different slice of life you’re not accustomed to.”

Kerri Helm, RN, Providence Medical Center, Kansas City, Kan., said she would still be traveling if the recession had not slowed nursing opportunities. Helm, who traveled for more than a year, lived in California, Arizona and Florida.

“It really made me a stronger person when it came to making decisions,” she said.

Helm planned to move to San Diego permanently with her sister and roommate but she was the only one to secure a job. Once she got to San Diego, she made another decision.

“I decided to keep traveling,” she said.

Helm worked with several agencies and extended her 13-week assignment in a San Diego intensive care unit to several hospitals in the city, where he lived for nine months.

“I learned how to surf,” Helm said. “I traveled to Mexico, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. I loved it.”

Helm moved to Tucson, Ariz., where she worked three months at the University of Tucson Medical Center’s cardio vascular ICU in heart and lung transplants. Helm said she would never get that kind of experience in Kansas City.

“That was my favorite hospital to work at,” she said.

Helm then moved to Hudson, Fla., expecting to work in ICU at an HCA medical center, but instead was scheduled to float between units due to short staffing of traveler nurses. She said it is important to negotiate your role with the agency and find out in advance where you will work.

“You have to fight for what you want,” she said.

Helm said as a traveler nurse she made more money than she does now, learned varying hospitals’ protocols and returned with a new set of skills.

“You’re constantly put in a new hospital where you’re not familiar,” she said. “That can be stressful at times.”

Helm recommends travel nursing, but cautions to find the right recruiter. Between the friends made, gorgeous scenery seen and skills learned, Helm said she would do it again.

“It’s a great way to explore,” she said.

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