5 Signs You Are Ready To Start A Travel Healthcare Career
It can be difficult to know when to start a travel healthcare career. Many would-be travelers can suffer from “analysis paralysis” thinking about all of the criteria they should meet before traveling. Should I wait until I have more experience? What if I end up somewhere I hate? Will I be able to support myself sufficiently? Do I have to become a wizard at finding a new place to live every few months? While those are all important questions, they are better left for after you decide to commit to a travel healthcare career. We’ve narrowed down five signs to look for when deciding to pursue a travel healthcare career. Signs You Are Ready To Start Your Travel Healthcare Career 1. You want to see new sights One of the most obvious benefits of being a healthcare traveler is right in the name. There are more than 30,000 active job posts on the StaffDNA boards at any given time that span the U.S. and cover a massive variety of locations. Looking to hit the ski slopes in the winter? Some facilities recruit for the winter as early as August. Want to find a nice small town with pretty trees for the fall? Take your pick of northeast states right off the Atlantic coast. One of the main factors stopping travelers from working where they want is having current state licenses, but even that is made easier because most agencies will pay your licensing fees. Additionally, nurses and physical therapists can get compact licenses which allows them to work in multiple states with only one license. Other healthcare professions are working towards implementing licensure compacts as well. 2. You want more control over your pay A traveler’s job flexibility also applies to their earning potential, not just location. The keyword to focus on here is “control,” because while it’s true travelers earn more on average than permanent staff, that doesn’t mean they always will. That’s why it’s important to think about your salary in terms of control—you can control what agencies you work with, the recruiters you work with and the jobs you pursue. Since the traveler job market is fast-moving and highly competitive, travel staffing agencies are constantly fighting tooth-and-nail to offer you the best pay package and solid benefits. 3. You want to build up your professional skillset quickly It’s easy to get stuck in a routine while working at the same facility every year. If you plan on traveling for more than a year, chances are you will work in a variety of different environments with unique challenges. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this constant job hopping can actually help you in the long run because it will show potential employers you are highly adaptable and can face unexpected problems with confidence. Traveling also means getting experience in multiple electronic medical (healthcare) record software platforms, as different hospitals will have their own systems. In a Black Book Research survey, 98 percent of travel nurses said fluency in multiple EMR platforms is a highly valued skill. Since facilities are constantly updating or implementing new EMR platforms, travelers with experience in multiple platforms can apply for EMR conversion contracts, which typically offer much higher pay rates than standard travel assignments. 4. You are sick of healthcare workplace “politics” Bad hospital management, interpersonal drama, pointless gossip, local union disputes—traveling gives you a chance to avoid almost all of the workplace “politics” that permanent staff have to deal with. Since you have the option to avoid toxic workplace relationships as a temporary staff member, that means you can focus more time on patient care and improving your skills. 5. You are ready for a challenge We’ve explained a lot of the benefits to traveling, but that doesn’t mean travelers get to just kick back and rake in money. Healthcare travelers have to be ready to face almost all of these challenges at any given time: Managing and frequently updating compliance documents Maintaining a tax home Managing relationships with multiple recruiters and agencies Applying for state licenses Multiple job interviews every year Calculating travel expenses Frequently looking for (and moving to) temporary housing Adjusting quickly to new work environments with limited orientation Planning on how to travel with friends, family or pets Loneliness or homesickness Constant on-the-job learning High expectations for job performance Avoiding workplace drama If this list of challenges seems daunting, that’s perfectly natural. Traveling has plenty of positive aspects, but it may not be for everyone. Some travelers find they love the challenge as it motivates them to work harder and improve their skills. The most important thing you can do after noticing the signs that you’re interested in traveling is to educate yourself. There are a variety of online resources—including this website—where you can find answers to any lingering questions you may have about being a healthcare traveler.
TravCon 2018: Organizers see strong early registrations for September conference
Signups for TravCon 2018, one of the largest annual conferences for traveling healthcare professionals, remain steady after a strong burst of early registrations in April, TravCon event coordinator Michelle Freitag said. “650 attendees have signed up so far, which is a little less than last year at this point,” Freitag said. “It’s very common for us to have an initial rush of registrations, and then a lot of signups at the very end.” At the 10th annual conference last year, 1,250 travelers attended marking the largest year ever for the event, according to the official conference website. The event has grown exponentially in the past five years in both the number of attendees and the diversity of classes, events and exhibitors it offers, Freitag said. Participation from allied health travelers at last year’s conference greatly increased, so organizers have added classes specifically for allied professionals. “60 percent of our [educational sessions] are new this year,” Freitag said. “We have a traveler self-defense class, a Destination: Guam class which we’ve never done before…and three new panels that will be very interesting. We have a CEO panel with a Q-and-A talking about the state of the healthcare industry.” Attendees can learn from travel healthcare experts at 40 educational sessions over three days and meet in person with travel healthcare staffing companies from around the country. Travel nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists can also receive upwards of 17 CEU credits to help maintain their professional licenses. Out of the 105 registered exhibitors this year, 78 of them are staffing companies, Freitag said. One of the main draws of TravCon every year is for travelers to meet with their favorite agencies—possibly for the first time. “Generally travelers may never meet their recruiter or company, so we bring them together so that you can meet your company or to find your future company,” Freitag said. “It’s a great way to get together professionally to find your next job or who you want to work for.” The conference will take place from Sept. 9-11 at Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is located on the Vegas Strip. Attendees can arrive early for the unofficial meet and greets and other pre-conference events, according to the TravCon website schedule. Registration for TravCon 2018 is open until Sept. 6. You will also be able to buy conference passes at the door, but availability will be limited. Those interested can learn more by visiting the TravCon website.
More Nurse Practitioners Now Pursue Residency Programs To Hone Skills
By Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News contributing columnist The patient at the clinic was in his 40s and had lost both his legs to Type 1 diabetes. He had mental health and substance abuse problems and was taking large amounts of opioids to manage pain. He was assigned to Nichole Mitchell, who in 2014 was a newly minted nurse practitioner in her first week of a one-year postgraduate residency program at the Community Health Center clinic in Middletown, Conn. In a regular clinical appointment, “I would have been given 20 minutes with him, and would have been without the support or knowledge of how to treat pain or Type 1 diabetes,” she said. But her residency program gives the nurse practitioners extra time to assess patients, allowing her to come up with a plan for the man’s care, she said, with a doctor at her side to whom she could put all her questions. A few years later, Mitchell is still at that clinic and now mentors nurse practitioner residents. She has developed a specialty in caring for patients with HIV and hepatitis C, as well as transgender health care. The residency program “gives you the space to explore things you’re interested in in family practice,” Mitchell said. “There’s no way I could have gotten that training without the residency.” Mitchell is part of a growing cadre of nurse practitioners — typically, registered nurses who have completed a master’s degree in nursing — who tack on up to a year of clinical and other training, often in primary care. Residencies may be at federally qualified health centers, Veterans Affairs medical centers or private practices and hospital systems. Patients run the gamut, but many are low-income and have complicated needs. Proponents say the programs help prepare new nurse practitioners to deal with the growing number of patients with complex health issues. But detractors say that a standard training program already provides adequate preparation to handle patients with serious health care needs. Nurse practitioners who choose not to do a residency, as the vast majority of the 23,000 who graduate each year do not, are well qualified to provide good patient care, they say. As many communities, especially rural ones, struggle to attract medical providers, it’s increasingly likely that patients will see a nurse practitioner rather than a medical doctor when they need care. In 2016, nurse practitioners made up a quarter of primary care providers in rural areas and 23 percent in non-rural areas, up from 17.6 and 15.9 percent, respectively, in 2008, according to a study in the June issue of Health Affairs. Depending on the state, they may practice independently of physicians or with varying degrees of oversight. Research has shown that nurse practitioners generally provide care that’s comparable to that of doctors in terms of quality, safety and effectiveness. But their training differs. Unlike the three-year residency programs that doctors must generally complete after medical school in order to practice medicine, nurse practitioner residency programs, sometimes called fellowships, are completely voluntary. Like medical school residents, though, the nurse practitioner residents work for a fraction of what they would make at a regular job, typically about half to three-quarters of a normal salary. Advocates say it’s worth it. “It’s a very difficult transition to go from excellent nurse practitioner training to full scope-of-practice provider,” said Margaret Flinter, a nurse practitioner who is senior vice president and clinical director of Community Health Center, a network of community health centers in Connecticut. “My experience was that too often, too many junior NPs found it a difficult transition, and we lost people, maybe forever, based on the intensity and readiness for seeing people” at our centers. Flinter started the first nurse practitioner residency program in 2007. There are now more than 50 postgraduate primary care residency programs nationwide, she said. Mentored clinical training is a key part of the programs, but they typically also include formal lectures and clinical rotations in other specialties. Not everyone is as gung-ho about the need for nurse practitioner residency programs, though. “There’s a lot of debate within the community,” said Joyce Knestrick, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Knestrick practices in Wheeling, W.Va., a rural area about an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh. She said that there could be a benefit if a nurse practitioner wanted to switch from primary care to work in a cardiology practice, for example. But otherwise she’s not sold on the idea. A position statement from the Nurse Practitioner Roundtable, a group of professional organizations of which AANP is a member, offered this assessment: “Forty years of patient outcomes and clinical research demonstrates that nurse practitioners consistently provide high quality, competent care. Additional post-graduate preparation is not required or necessary for entry into practice.” “We already have good outcomes to show that our current educational system has been effective,” Knestrick said. “So I’m not really sure what the benefit is for residencies.” This story originally appeared on Kaiser Health News (KHN) and NPR. Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.