What Travel Nurses Can Learn on the Job
By Melissa Hagstrom, contributor
Nurses choose to become travel nurses for many different reasons--from the freedom and flexibility to the great pay and the chance to see the country. But many also appreciate to the ability to learn new skills, techniques and best practices that come with choosing a travel nursing career.
As seasoned travelers have found, few other nursing opportunities can provide such varied and rich learning experiences at top-notch health care facilities across the country.
Travel nurse Diondria Sanders, RN, has a background in maternity care, med-surg and telemetry nursing. She reports that her decision to embark on a travel career with American Mobile Healthcare, an AMN Healthcare company, has helped her gain new skills within her specialty and professional life.
"I have gotten a lot better at conducting labs on newborns during my time as a travel nurse," Sanders said. "I have been shown some of the tricks of the trade, which has helped me a lot in this area."
In addition to improving specific nursing skills, Sanders credits travel nursing with helping her to develop her critical thinking skills. She expects that this will help her in many aspects of her career--even as she completes her RN-to-MSN nurse midwifery program at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va.
Another American Mobile traveler, Doug Minor, RN, BSN, a two-year travel veteran in critical care, cardiac surgery and coronary care, said travel nursing has taught him to be flexible, positive, open-minded and willing to do whatever needs to be done.
While this positive outlook has helped Minor's nursing career flourish, the technical skills and treatments he has learned on the job have become the most valuable aspects of his working experience.
"Some of the things we were doing with CRRT [continuous renal replacement therapy] and the PRISMA machine on my last assignment were really amazing," Minor said. " I had a class on PRISMA, but had never used the machine and it has been amazing to see the different outcomes and the different modes that the machine has. The staff took me in, showed me the machine and I really learned valuable skills with using PRISMA and CRRT as far as open-heart surgery goes."
Minor has also gained exposure to other valuable nursing techniques during his travels, specifically with hypothermia protocol in immediate post-cardiac arrest patients.
"I have been learning the hypothermia protocol, which has been around for a long time, but I was never exposed to it as a staff nurse," he said. "I've seen it work wonders on patients I never thought would be functional, and they are sitting up within a couple of days and you would never even know they had a heart attack or their heart stopped."
His travel work has also helped him stay current with other important skills.
"My computer skills have grown considerably over the last two years," he pointed out.
Minor began his nursing career working at small hospitals in Ohio and West Virginia. He wasn’t aware of many of the newer technologies and innovative techniques that were out there until he started traveling two years ago.
"I took to travel nursing to get out of the area I was living in and learn the things I was reading about in nursing magazines, and also for the great pay and travel alone," Minor said.
Sanders has traveled to San Antonio, Texas, and Washington, D.C., and hopes to travel to Georgia or Alaska next.
"Another thing that has been most helpful to me to learn as a travel nurse is the documentation system that each facility uses--both paper and computer," she explained.
"These skills are so valuable to me because I know I will see this stuff again," she added. "If you can learn a better way of doing something, it's going to be helpful. I will see critical thinking situations again, and I will see newborn labs again."
Sanders reports that she has learned another valuable lesson, as well: a good recruiter can make all of the difference for those who choose a travel nursing career.
"My recruiter, Jenna, has found me the types of assignments that will better me and the direction that I'm trying to go in with my career. She has really worked feverishly on my behalf and I couldn't ask for a better recruiter. I feel like the traveler–recruiter relationship can really make or break your travel experience."
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