I know most travel nurses now started at the height of pandemic. Who could blame them? Higher pay, not really better working scenarios, but the pay justified the amount of work that we all endured during the most tragic moment in the history of modern healthcare.
I started doing travel nursing in 2016 after my 1 year and 8 months as a Telemetry nurse. I met a travel nurse in the unit. She said she's from Florida, and does travel nursing because of pay. When I asked her how much she was making, my jaw dropped. She was making double my salary without any overtime. She was working three days a week, with the highest amount of pay I could only wish for myself. Not only that, she was a great nurse. She was able to jump right in with minimum help and orientation, and I was just blown away by the idea of travel nursing.
The night after I met her, I couldn't sleep. I just knew a door opened for me. An opportunity. I looked it up online and tried to learn as much as I can. At the time, I didn't know how to drive yet. I was a new immigrant with a lot of things I had to learn. My boyfriend then was a telemetry nurse in another unit. We call it the East wing. We actually met because there was a nurse who works both wings and told us we look like we'd match based on our personalities: I was goofy and he was quiet. I told him what I wanted to do and he told me I couldn't drive, so he asked "how are you going to do it?" I was disheartened at first, but to my surprise (jk, a lot of convincing happened), he agreed to do it with me.
We ended up in Virginia, a beautiful and scenic state with friendly people and safe nurse to patient ratio. The hospital was traveler-friendly, and we met a lot of other travel nurses. Four contracts later, we decided to go back as staff. I wanted to become an ICU nurse after talking to other travel nurses who were both specialized in ICU and Telemetry. I thought, how cool would that be? You can swing both units, depending on the need. That means flexibility in terms of options of locations and unit area, and more bargaining power when it comes to pay.
As you may notice in this post, I talk to people, I learn something new, and then just go for it. That's basically the story of my life. LOL Two years in the ICU, I tried to absorb everything I can. I started in Neuro ICU, then Medical ICU, then General ICU.
I didn't care about the term "job hopping" then. I cared more about learning and gaining more experiences.
Fast forward to December of 2020: It's been months of dealing with the pandemic. I was the charge nurse in our unit, and we were severely short staffed. I remember getting help from state nurses from Krucial Staffing. To be honest, I didn't have any want to jump back to travel nursing. My job was pretty stable, I thought. And I actually love the unit where I was working. People were friendly, work is great, not as busy as you'd think. Until our manager decided to cut our hours because there are many travelers in the unit.
So here's the thing about nurses hired by the state: they were paid by the government as emergency aid to hospitals. Meaning, the hospitals are getting free help, so to cut the hours of their regular employees was GREEDY and UNREASONABLE.
I think most nurses who left their staff jobs during the pandemic did not deserve the judgments they got. To call them "traitors" for leaving their communities to help other states/cities was definitely uncalled for. If you weren't in our shoes, you can't make assumptions.
After contemplating on it for a few days, and other state nurses telling me, "You need to choose yourself. This job is still going to hire another charge nurse before you know it," I left. I wrote a resignation letter, left it with our house supervisor, and flew to Odessa the next day.
I never came back to staff nursing since. It's been two years of continued travel nursing assignments. I have had more offs for the past two years than my combined 6 years of staff nursing. My mental health is better. I was able to build a 4-BR house in Texas. And for my next assignment, I'm finally bringing my dog with me.
It's been a sweet and fulfilling journey. I've met a lot of new friends. I've grown so much. I've healed so much.
Right now, I'm getting ready to wrap up my contract #10. Time flew just like that! On top of being a travel nurse, I'm also a nurse coach student, and starting practicums this September. I'm hoping to be done with my boards first quarter of next year! YAY How I decided to become a nurse coach is a whole other STORY.
Thank you for reading!
If you're getting something from this post, I want it to be THIS:
You are free to change your mind, improve yourself, and go for what you think is BEST for YOU. Nobody is going to prioritize you like you. Be unapologetic, you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.
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