I cannot believe that it’s been six years – almost to the day! – since I graduated from nursing school! In honor of today being International Nurse’s Day, I’ve decided to write about my nursing journey from nursing student to Emergency Department Travel Nurse.
Nursing School/1st Hospital in Chattanooga, TN
Everyone always asks me why I decided to become a nurse, and I always want to be able to tell them some epic story about how I felt called to serve others in this way, but the real story is that a few of the friends that I graduated high school with were going into nursing school, and I wanted to be in class with them 😂
The nursing school I attended offered an Associates in Nursing degree (ASN) as well as a Bachelor’s in Nursing degree (BSN). The program was designed to allow students to begin working as a nurse after completing their ASN while finishing their BSN (just two more semesters). So after graduating with my associates, I got a job working the night shift on a neuro step-down floor (meaning we took semi critical patients that didn’t quite need to be in the ICU but needed more attention than just a regular med-surg floor could give them). I continued working full time on the night shift while completing my bachelor’s degree during the day (giant mistake, 0/10 recommend).
2nd Hospital (1st Travel Nurse Job) in San Bernardino, CA
As soon as I graduated with my BSN, I left that job and spent some time relaxing and traveling before heading to Southern California to start my very first travel nurse assignment on a telemetry floor (basically a cardiac floor where the patients require cardiac monitoring). At that time my college boyfriend was attending graduate school in California, and I didn’t want to commit to working at any hospitals without testing them out as a travel nurse first (I can’t stress enough how little research I did before starting my travel nurse journey – if you’re wanting to become a travel nurse please, please, please do your research beforehand … keep reading for some awesome resources that I 100% recommend to anyone who asks me about the legalities of travel nursing). I worked on that same floor for six months (two contracts); by the time the second contract was complete, I had broken up with my boyfriend, so I was able to leave the area pretty conveniently. One of the amazing things about my time in California was that I was able to live cheap and save some money (some of which I used to pay for a trip to Thailand – let me know in the comments if you’d be interested in a blog post about that trip!).
Next – in typical millennial fashion – I moved back in with my parents while searching for my next job. Wary from my first two severely understaffed jobs and some health concerns from working the night shift, as well as the safety net of living with my parents, pushed me to be more selective when searching for a job. I went on several interviews and even went to a job fair before accepting a day shift position on another telemetry floor at a hospital in Fort Worth, TX. I had applied to work in two different Emergency Departments, but the medical field is weird in that unless you’re a new grad, no one wants to hire you to work in an area you have no experience in. Meaning that someone who has zero nursing experience would get hired before me – even though I’d been working as a nurse for a year and a half. Which was (and still is) very frustrating to me, because at this point I knew that I did not want to work on an inpatient floor forever. The Emergency Department had always intrigued me – it seemed to me like the nurses who worked there were “actual” nurses, while I felt more like a well trained and overpaid maid. Inpatient nursing (while it’s a relatively safe setting for a new nurse to learn foundational nursing skills) can be very monotonous. It’s not that the work isn’t hard, but it can get very repetitive. That, along with the unrealistic expectations of the patients and management alike, had already started to take a toll on me both physically and mentally.
3rd Hospital in Fort Worth, TX
After I started that third nursing job is when I began dating my husband (read all about our love story here). So a little over four months into that job (and well into a season of burn out), I decided to apply to two different Emergency Departments near where he lived in Arkansas. One was a regular ER, and the other was a pediatric ER at a brand new hospital that had not even opened yet. I told myself that if I got a job working in an ER, I would move to Arkansas. Lo and behold, I was called in for interviews at both jobs, and within a few days I was offered a position at each hospital. At this point it was pretty clear to me that I was supposed to move to Arkansas, so I accepted the job in the pediatric ER, quit my job in Fort Worth, secured a place to live, packed up my storage unit, and moved to Siloam Springs, AR.
4th Hospital in Springdale, AR
People often ask me what its like working at a pediatric hospital. For some reason, nurses who have only ever worked in adult hospitals are terrified of working with kids (I know I used to be!). But honestly, that has been my favorite job I’ve ever had. No nursing unit (or hospital for that matter) is perfect, and the pediatric ER I worked at was definitely no exception. But the actual work of serving such a vulnerable population was very rewarding. Here are some of the things I liked most about working there:
- I learned to be an ER nurse
- I gained a fresh perspective for a career that I had grown to hate
- I got to work with and learn from some amazing doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, fellow nurses, and paramedics
- I learned new ways to serve a new (to me) patient population
- It was SO. MUCH. FUN!
5th Hospital in Fayetteville, AR
A little over a year into working at the children’s hospital, my then-fiancé and I were on a bike ride through my neighborhood and talking about our future. Not knowing where we wanted to settle down and build a life together was our biggest struggle; most of his family and friends lived in Arkansas, and he’d never lived anywhere else, while most of my family and friends lived in Texas. We also knew we wanted to make travel a priority in our life. That’s when Keith suggested travel nursing. From that moment on everything we did was geared towards making that dream our reality. I made the transition to working in an adult ER (the very same one that had offered me a job a little over a year earlier) so that I would have more job opportunities available to me once we started traveling (there’s not a very big market for pediatric ER travel nurses), I started downsizing my possessions by selling, donating, or gifting them, I researched the legalities of being a travel nurse (the best resources I always recommend are https://traveltax.com/tax-preparation-for-travelers/ and The Truth About Travel Nursing podcast), and we bought an RV to be able to travel as comfortably as possible with our dog Luna – all this while planning a wedding (read about my wedding planning process here!).
I knew I needed to work in the adult ER for at least a year before hitting the road as a travel nurse, and, thanks to a lot of hard work and planning, by the time that year was up we were ready to go. I sold my house about a month before quitting my job and we moved into a room in Keith’s parents house (we pay them fair market rent for that room), then we sold my car and traded in Keith’s car for a Jeep Wrangler (2-door, soft top, and manual transmission – I freaking loved that car) because we wanted the option to tow it behind our Class C RV. The most complicated part – planning wise – was knowing when to put on my notice at work. That particular hospital requires a four week notice instead of the standard two week notice. However, most travel nursing jobs are only posted about 4-6 weeks in advance (and that’s being generous). Plus we wanted to go on our honeymoon after finishing my job in Arkansas before starting any travel nurse assignments. But once the house sold, I knew it was time. I actually didn’t even have a travel nurse contract locked in until my very last week at that job!
6th Hospital/2nd Travel Nurse Job in Lancaster, CA
Luckily, all the details sorted themselves out and the beginning of March 2020 found us in Southern California. We had so many dreams and plans for what we were going to be able to do and see while there, but about a week after starting my contract we became intimately familiar with quarantine, mask laws, and stay-at-home orders (we were in the Northern tip of Los Angeles County, so we were right on the heels of the city of San Francisco to be locked down).
If I had to choose one word to describe that ER, it would be utter and complete chaos. The only thing that saved me was the lack of patients during the early days of COVID quarantine, which allowed me to get used to the flow of that emergency department (it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced anywhere else). By the end of my three month contract there, we were miserable and dying to go anywhere else – unfortunately there were next to no jobs being posted (thanks again to the lack of patients coming in to ERs at that time). So I reluctantly renewed my contract for another three months. By the end of those six months in California, we had experienced everything that state has to offer (and if it isn’t representative of the year 2020, I don’t know what is) – snow, freezing temperatures, an earthquake, quarantine, riots, curfews, food (and, the more ridiculous, toilet paper) shortages, 112°F weather, and wildfires. We were so ready to leave.
7th Hospital/3rd Travel Nurse Job in Farmington, NM
My next assignment took us to Farmington, NM. I enjoyed working at the ER there, although the town itself was a bit of a repellant. Our experience there couldn’t have been more different than in California. We made some awesome friends while there (read more about Kayla and Zach here and here), and we were able to actually travel and explore new areas of the country (read my posts about Ouray, Telluride, and Durango). The end of that contract was bittersweet as we left good friends and a good job to head home for the holidays. The best part of travel nursing is being able to take time off in between contracts. During that break (which lasted for two weeks over Christmas) we were able to spend time with our Arkansas family who we hadn’t seen much of since leaving the state nine months earlier. Then we traveled down to Texas for my next assignment and were able to spend time with family and friends there as well.
8th Hospital/4th Travel Nurse Job in Mansfield, TX
The Mansfield, TX assignment came with its own set of problems (read a whole blog post about our time in Texas here). But there were also so many benefits!
Cons:
- Keith got COVID
- Snowpocalypse 2021
Pros:
- So many family and friends in the area
- The ER I worked at was amazing
- I was able to build up a pretty solid base for my photography business
- We were able to get vaccinated!
- Our RV park was pretty awesome
9th Hospital/5th Travel Nurse Job in Tacoma, WA
Currently I’m on an assignment in Tacoma, WA in a stand-alone ER (which just means we’re not attached to a hospital, but we still have all the resources and capabilities of any other ER). It’s a new experience for me and I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore the PNW, which has been on my travel bucket list for a really long time (stay tuned for more blog posts about our adventures here).
My nursing journey has been long and, at times, unconventional. But this profession has opened so many doors for me and given me so many opportunities, and for that I will be forever grateful. So to all you nurses out there, happy International Nurse’s Day!
I’m a wife, a dog mom, a foodie, a wanderer, a registered nurse, and a couples/intimate wedding/elopement photographer … and this blog will cover it all! If you enjoyed this post, first of all thank you, and second of all please follow me on Instagram + Facebook to get updates on future blog posts, see sneak peeks of my amazing couples, and so much more! If you have any questions about elopement photography, my journey from nursing to photography, or my time spent as a full-time RVer, drop a comment and I just might write a blog post answering your question (but I definitely will)!
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