Making The Transition From Staff To Travel Nurse
This is the first blog post written from my Airbnb bedroom in California and I figured it would be fitting to share about my decision to leave my staff job in Miami to start travel nursing. The decision to leave my job in Miami was difficult, and Matt and I prayed about it a lot before making the decision. As we have shared before, Matt is traveling for his clinical rotations for the last 6 months of his PT program. I had been interested in travel nursing once before, but for several reasons, was never ready to take the leap. However, having the flexibility to travel with Matt on at least one of his clinical rotations was a huge draw this time around!
The first time I considered travel nursing was about a year into nursing. It was just a few months after starting my first job on a med-surg/telemetry floor that I first heard about this field of ‘travel nursing’. It was an interesting concept – hospitals paying packages for nurses to take temporary assignments when they have staffing needs they cannot fill, putting them up in housing, and paying for travel/meals on the assignment. I was fascinated by the fact that I could be compensated to visit places I was interested in exploring, but also gain valuable experience and skills moving from facility to facility.
Personally, I thrive off change, so moving hospitals every few months sounded awesome! I am always looking for ways that I can grow as a person as well as in my career. Travel nursing seemed to check these boxes for me. However, at the time I first learned about travel nursing, I did not enjoy the specialty I was working in. Each travel nurse agency and hospital has different requirements for years of experience in a specific specialty. Some require just a year in a specialty, while others require 2 years or more. Because I was unhappy in my specialty, I decided to make a move from med-surg/telemetry to the ER after my one-year mark as an RN. With that move, I gave up on the idea of travel nursing as was unsure if my experience would be sufficient (or I would feel prepared) to take on a traveling ER nurse position.
I knocked on the ER manager's door for months, eventually landing myself a transfer from the floor down to the ER at my hospital. Finally, I felt like I was enjoying my work! I loved the thrill of the ER, how I never knew what would walk through the door when I showed up for my shift. The experienced nurses and physicians in the ER took me under their wings, teaching me and challenging me to learn and I grew quickly. I had some tough days during that transition, but feel that I came out stronger more prepared than ever (big thanks to my UM family)!
I had no intention of leaving my hospital until after Matt graduated, but as I got comfortable in the ER, I started to feel my heart tugging me back to traveling. The reality of living so far from Matt during his clinical rotations also began to settle in, making traveling with him seem all the more appealing. Matt and I talked and prayed about the decision, and we continued to feel traveling was something we wanted to pursue. Whether it worked out or not, there was no harm in trying!
I applied for my California RN license in March, got licensed in June, and started applying to jobs in August. I applied to job after job with no response. I was discouraged, but continued to feel that this was where my heart was leading. I decided to write down a positive message to myself; a declaration of my success in landing a travel ER nurse job before I had one. The next week, I got the phone call I had been waiting for – a job offer in California near the location of Matt’s first clinical!
Through this process I have learned a lot - especially the power of positivity and prayer. Travel nursing was my dream and now I am on that adventure (and I get to be close to my hubby too!) I truly believe that faith and hard work will get you so much farther than fear of failure and complacency. Having faith that something will work out isn't easy, especially when it means sacrificing to get it (for me, giving up a stable job with good benefits). Big dreams require you to step out in faith and give it everything, even when it’s scary and you don’t know where it will lead. So what is your dream? Are you ready to go for it?