New Article on Emergency Department Travel Nursing
AHEAD OF THE Emergency Nurses Association convention, Healthcare Traveler will feature an article on how staff emergency department (ED) nurses can break into the world of travel nursing. I got the call to write this one, and the resultant piece, “Getting Started as an Emergency Department Travel Nurse,” is now available in dead-tree and digital form. My intro:
Each emergency department has its own unique culture and rhythm, but the transition from your home ED to others around the country might be easier than you’d imagine. By exposing you to diverse patient populations, novel patient care techniques, and the fertile minds of other caregivers, each new assignment is like a miniature nursing school. And don’t forget the chance to visit and absorb the local attractions of countless new communities to a degree you’d never achieve over a fleeting week’s vacation.
Although veteran travel nurses will say there’s no bad time to start your mobile career, there’s definitely a best way. To help you find it, we’ve tapped the wisdom of several travel nursing recruiters and ED travelers for an overview of the current market and their suggestions for securing and acing your first assignment. Once you sample the travel world, you may wonder why you waited so long!
Similar to my July 2010 HT article, “Ten Dont’s: Steer Clear of These Travel Nursing Pitfalls,” this one’s sort of a round table format, calling upon the input of several recruiters and ED travelers to form a picture of the industry and what nurses should keep in mind while beginning their first assignments.
This was also one of those stories where using a sidebar greatly improved the readability of the final draft. I had originally integrated the first-timer’s advice into the story itself, but it made the main narrative much lumpier.
As sometimes happens, while mulling the problem during the morning shower, the solution presented itself. I’ve learned to keep a pad and pen close to the bed for those ideas that sneak in across the hazy borders of sleep, but I know of no such option for shower-inspired thoughts . . . short of either writing it in steam on the mirror, or streaking to the keyboard in some 21st-century version of Archimedes’ “Eureka!” moment. Which, hey, nobody wants to see.
Check here for a full list of articles on nursing topics. October’s HT will be a big month for me, because I wrote both feature articles. The first, as mentioned earlier, is the story of a pediatric travel nurse who spent 11 days in an intensive-care hospital tent in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince. The second is another round-table-style article on the best ways to communicate and forge partnerships with the physicians that travel nurses will meet while roving the healthcare settings of America.
I’m always looking for ideas that need someone to shepherd them from germ to gem. (See, all I’ll need to do is delete an r. Simple!) If you’re interested in recruiting a regular writer for your blog, magazine, or other periodical—whether in the healthcare, temporary work, personnel recruiting, or other areas—please contact me!
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