What is a Travel Nurse?

Just as the job title implies, a travel nurse is a specialized nurse who travels to hospitals around the country in order to ease nursing shortages, seasonal staffing needs, or fill in for temporary absences of regular personnel. Many facilities don’t have the need for permanent, full-time specialty staff nurses, but often times the need does arise temporarily. In these cases, hospitals look to travel nurses to help satisfy a critical need.

For nurses who are independent, resourceful, and desire a degree of personal and professional freedom to experience different locations around the country travel nursing is a good career option.

Become a Travel Nurse

First, to become a travel nurse you must complete a degree in nursing resulting in a title of registered nurse (R.N.). To complete your licensing requirement, you will need to pass the NCLEX-RN exam.

Next, you will need to gain valuable experience in an acute-care hospital for at least two years. Obtaining special certifications such as PALS, ACLS or NIH stroke scale will greatly enhance your chances of qualifying for the top-paying assignments. A certification, as with CCRN for critical care, is valuable because it verifies competency in a certain specialty.

Finally, enlist the help of a qualified agency - like Fastaff - that specializes in placing travel nurses all across the country. A recruiter can act as a career counselor, helping you to get your career off to the best start with expert insider advice and well-paying assignments.

Benefits of Travel Nursing

In addition to helping hospitals maintain a high level of quality patient care, travel nurses can choose which locations and assignments they want to work, as well as the length of assignments. In addition, full benefit packages are often offered on day 1.

Travel nurses generally receive higher pay than full-time permanent staff nurses.

So what are you waiting for? Apply today.