Travel nursing is an exciting and rapidly growing field. For those with a desire to help others and also explore the world or even just travel across the United States, becoming a a travel nurse just may be the way to do it.
Read on to learn all about how to become a travel nurse.
Why choose travel nursing as a career?
A huge number of individuals wish to have an occupation that both pays them well and also permits them to journey around the country or the world. One field that actually delivers on all of these dreams is that of working in LPN travel nursing jobs. Such medical professionals step in for nurses who may be away on sick leave, maternity leave, or any other similar prolonged period of absence. They are also called upon in scenarios where a staff shortage materializes or a major emergency takes place.
Travel RN jobs give you more than the ability to see America, they can also let you work in other exciting international destinations abroad. Where salaries are concerned though, those in the U.S. tend to find the highest paying travel nursing jobs. This job includes fabulous benefits and advantages. One of these involves gaining a wide range of invaluable professional experience in multiple locations. Another is the ability to choose the specialty you like best or alternate between different Nurse Specialty Jobs for different periods. Besides this of course, you enjoy travelling, living in exciting new locales, and getting to know many different kinds of interesting new individuals along the way.
What are the most popular travel nursing jobs?
There are a whole range of travel jobs to choose from, with some specialties in higher demand than others.
Below we take a look at 12 popular travelling nurse specialties around the U.S. and internationally.
1. NICU Travel Nurse Jobs
A NICU Travel Nurse handles neonatal intensive care situations for newborns. These nurses sustain the life for the most vulnerable of little patients. They provide invaluable care for the early staged infants which is essential for their proper development and even sometimes recovery. NICU neonatal nurses stand on the front line of care when a complication occurs. It makes their job at times life saving.
2. PICU Travel Nurse Jobs
PICU’s are Pediatric Intensive Care nurses. A nurse with a Pediatric intensive care unit is a registered nurse working shifts that may be holidays, nights, or days. These professionals are in highest demand, which helps to ensure desirable destinations, high pay, and additional incentive to lure qualified PICU nurse travelers.
3. Pediatric Nurse
With pediatric travel nursing, you provide care for children from the moment of their birth through their teenage years. These nurses deliver the crucial support to help them grow both happy and healthy. Both mental and physical support roles provide a necessary part of the child’s development.
4. Home Health Travel Nurse
The responsibilities and duties of a home health travel nurse are a broad variety of support and care services intended for those patients who are in recovery process from disability, hospitalization, terminal or critical illness, or who require therapeutic assistance or treatment with their daily life essentials. These professionals are a crucial link between the doctors and patients who have been discharged and returned home. This includes patients suffering from longer-term illness and continuing disability who need such nurses to constantly and correctly evaluate their needs and communicate them to support staff so that the recovery remains on pace.
5. Emergency Room Nurse
Emergency room nurses are the front line care givers for crucial care situations. They deliver upfront treatment and assessment to those patients who are severely injured or critically ill. This means that ER nurses are a vital link in emergency medicine and services delivery.
6. Per Diem Nursing Jobs
Per diem nursing and travelling nurses sign on for pre-determined shifts and lengths of service at an arranged location. They journey all over the nation to those healthcare facilities to provide extended (up to 13 week assignment) staffing needs at one location.
7. Labor and Delivery Nurse
Travel Nursing in the capacity of Labor and Delivery Nursing is a critical role. They offer essential care to monitor both newborn babies and new mothers both in labor and during birth. This specialty is usually regarded as a top demanded travel nursing occupation. Expectant mothers need these professionals to make the delivery smooth and as trouble free as humanly possible both during and after childbirth.
8. Telemetry Registered Nurse
Telemetry nursing jobs monitor and treat patients for their heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, blood oxygen level, and other critical signs. These travel nurses assist telemetry patients who have experienced major surgery but who no longer require intensive care provision. They manage the patient care for those suffering from non-life threatening but still severe problems that need somewhat complicated assessment, treatment, and intervention.
9. Operating Room Nurse
An operating room travelling nurse goes to places where they have assignments working for a range of clinical environments. These would naturally include all of the following: university teaching facilities, chronic and acute care, advanced trauma centers, children’s hospitals, and outpatient surgery centers.
10. Medical Surgery Nurse
Medical surgery nurses and other RN’s deliver critical care before and after medical surgeries and other procedures to adults. Facilities that need travelling Med-Surg nurses include outpatient clinics, hospitals, longer-term care facilities, and specialty surgery centers.
11. Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse
A nurse does not need to work for a psychiatric hospital or mental health facility in order to provide specialized care to patients with mental disorders. They are in demand in travelling roles in community education, home care settings, and to families of patients who are preparing to experience and undergo therapy.
12. Oncology Nurse
In the highest demand today are Oncology Travel Nurses. They are highly and specifically trained to work in a highly specialized field. Oncology Travel Nursing permits RNs to serve in the best hospitals. They can look forward to amazing benefits such as free housing, the highest salaries, health insurance provision, and even protection plus plans.
What Are the Travel Nurse Requirements?
Becoming a traveling nurse involves a specific course of training. It starts with becoming a RN Registered Nurse. These Travel Nurses have three ways to become fully registered nurses. You may attend nursing schools that are located in hospitals. This is a four year course of training. You might also pursue an ADN that needs about two years to finish. Gaining a bachelor’s degree from this point needs another one to two years of study. Alternatively, you can pursue a Bachelor’s in Science of Nursing over a four year course at a (medical) university.
After obtaining a minimally Bachelor’s Degree, you will be required to pass an N-CLEX exam. This allows you to choose a specialization like pediatrics or cardiac care. Completing this will obtain a Master’s Degree for the student, who becomes an MSN nurse.
Becoming a travelling nurse starts with the RN certification and ideally includes gaining an MSN as well, though it is not strictly required. More employers will want to see minimally a single year of practical field work experience following degrees before they will agree to hire you.
