Pros and Cons of Travel Nursing- (Guest post)

The ongoing shortage of Nurses creates a large number of challenging travel-nursing jobs throughout the world, while offering many rewards. Traveling Nurses are able to work in many different hospitals and learn new ways of doing things on a regular basis, enabling them to build numerous and high quality skill sets for resumes. They typically receive very attractive salaries and sometimes earn bonuses for their contributions to each job. Many also receive benefits like paid housing and tax allowances when working away from home. A traveling Nurse stationed in different geographical locations may obtain the feeling of vacationing while at work and gain the ability to explore future relocation options. Hiring agencies allow traveling Nurses to choose preferred work destinations. They can also meet many new people while traveling and experience new ways of living life. In addition, traveling Nurse’s work schedules may be somewhat flexible and each assignment lasts only 3 months. Thus, Nurses in these positions have to deal with hospital politics and other annoying issues for only a short time before going back home or moving on to their next assignment.

However, traveling Nurses must move from hospital to hospital frequently and there is not much stability. Short-term, there is not much room for advancement in this career, due to the limited work commitment at each location. Most hospitals want experienced Nurses and thus the industry standard prerequisite for a traveling Nurse is 2 years of strong clinical work skills. Once on location, traveling Nurses receive little cross training in their jobs because hospitals hire them to come in and work right away within their field of specialty. Traveling Nurses often walk into new assignments blindly and sometimes experience different environmental obstacles such as poor work conditions or unfriendly staff. They must take competency exams and new employee orientation training at each location. Traveling Nurses must also apply for and obtain a new license to work in each state. Sometimes there may be a lack of health insurance coverage between assignments because it expires at the end of each contract. When traveling from city to city, it is sometimes inconvenient and difficult to find your way around a new area and find necessary doctors, dentists, or other local providers. Some traveling Nurses also get homesick and miss their core group of friends, family, and hometown.

This guest article was written by Christine Howell who frequently writes about online nursing degrees and college related topics for Online College Guru, a directory of online college degrees.