Where Have All The Travel Nurses Gone?

Got a call from one of the recruiters the other day that we had worked with in the past. She was getting ready to go on vacation and was hoping that she could place us in a hospital that we had already done a contract throught her agency. She said that she was having trouble finding travel nurses to fill positions she had openings for. First and foremost, I think that this brings to light a whole bigger problem in Health Care. There are no nurses to recruit, that is why there are travel positions around the country. AOL said two years ago that there would be more nurses leaving the profession than are going in. I think that it is happening on a much more accelerated rate. Maybe with the economy being the way it is that more students will steer themselves to the medical professions. I have not read of any lay-offs at any of the local hospitals or even any of those in Oklahoma.

Nursing was always a stable carreer for my wife and I. There were always jobs and we were able to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. We provided for our families and there never seemed to be any end in sight. We went through all sorts of reimbursement solutions and Doctors incomes were threatened and Hospitals would not be getting as much money for the cases they were handling, Nursing wasn't threatened but maybe the money wasn't always there to get the raises we thought we deserved. For a long time the raises that I got did not even help me keep up with the standard of living index that was being published.

Travel Nursing has always maintained its attraction because there has it seems always been a shortage of nurses. Nurses in my wife's and my age bracket with the years we have put in (30 and 35 years respectively. We are tired. That means a lot of things. Tired of under qualified managers and all of the polictical issues. Tired of the same old grumbling Docs wherever we went. Tired of the physical nature of the job when you work in the Operating Room. It was exhausting most of the time and especially so when you work in a Level One Trauma Center!I

I would not trade any of it as I look back and knowing what I know now I don't know if I would even enter the profession. I cannot go back, so it is what it is. If you are looking for a travel assignment though I would recommend the link attached above they will take good care of you and if you give them my name and finish a contract with them I would get a bit of a referral bonus. Just click on the title and off you go. I just think this internet stuff is cool as all get out.

Besides having all of this Internet Marketing business going we decided that we would never go back to a facility that we had already worked at. There were just too many places to go and we did not see the need to stay put. If you keep doing travel assignments at the same hospital then it is no longer traveling, it is permanent staffing.