Articles : Travel Nursing
Travel Nurse Relocates Family08/04/05 by Claire Brocato
Lyn Varrati, RN, and her family enjoyed the wide open spaces and unhurried pace of life in Nebraska. They never thought about the possibility of living anywhere else. That is until Varrati’s five-year-old daughter, Marissa, was approached by Hollywood’s top talent agencies.
"The management company and agency who wanted to sign her were both based in Los Angeles," Varrati explained. "That’s when we realized that living in Nebraska presented us with some logistical problems."
The Varrati family discussed whether to stay in Nebraska and commute to auditions in Los Angeles, but decided that would be impractical.
The other option they considered was to relocate to California. But that also meant changing jobs.
"That’s when I considered the possibility of travel nursing," she said. "I wanted a job that didn’t require a long-term commitment, as we had no idea how long we wanted to stay. Travel nursing seemed like the ideal way to earn good money, get help with our accommodation and to ‘test the waters’ at the same time."
Varrati contacted several travel nursing companies, but her specialty—ambulatory pre-operative surgery—didn’t seem to have many available travel nursing assignments at the time.
"However, a week or two later, I got a call from a recruiter at O’Grady Peyton, asking me if I was still looking for a travel assignment in southern California. They had a position in my specialty at a facility in San Diego."
She interviewed for the position and got the job.
"Everything started falling into place after that. It just seemed like it was meant to be, " Varrati said.
"Because we had no idea how long we wanted to stay in California, we put most of our furniture into storage in Nebraska," she continued. "O’Grady Peyton did a great job of finding us a fully furnished condo in a very desirable area in San Diego. The community where we live has a pool, which the kids love, a workout room, and the beach is just down the road."
Relocating to California through travel nursing was the perfect solution for Varrati and her family.
"I work four days a week and have every weekend free," she explained. "I am always home in time to have dinner with my family and to do things with them in the evening. As a staff nurse in Nebraska I worked longer hours and often got home after the children were asleep."
"My husband stays home and does a wonderful job of taking care of Marissa and her younger brother. When she needs to be in Los Angeles for an audition, he’s the one who gets her ready—pigtails and all—and drives her to Los Angeles and back," said Varrati.
"Although the traffic in California is rather scary—it’s not something we were prepared for—we love our new life out here," she continued. "The weather is amazing and there are so many activities for us to enjoy as a family. We have annual passes to SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo. We spend a lot of time outdoors, enjoying the sunshine and exploring different places. Although we miss our family in Nebraska, we have decided that we are here to stay."
Verrati recently extended her current assignment at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla for another 13 weeks.
"Ultimately, we would like to move further north to be closer to Los Angeles, but for now, we are very happy where we are," she said. "I work with a wonderful team of people at Scripps Memorial, and although I was a little nervous at first about how I’d fit in, it has all worked out extremely well. I don’t think it gets any better than this."
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