Know the Work of Nurses Before You Become One

By Brent McNutt

"What do you do for a living?" This question gets to the nitty gritty of our jobs. It goes beyond the job title. It goes beyond the salary. It even goes beyond the "job description." When people ask this question, it gets to the heart of our job. For example, an incident manager might reply, "I contact people who know what they are doing, and then I ask them what they are doing." Likewise, if you are considering becoming a nurse, then you should have a clear sense of what the job entails. Here are some key elements:

1. Nursing is flexible

Nurses have one of the most flexible occupations in the world. Think about it this way: every person in the world has health, thus they need healthcare services. If you are a breathing human, then you can get sick. Typically, we imagine nurses working in hospitals. However, they can labor in several different environments, including:

• hospitals
• doctors' offices
• home care places
• nursing homes
• occupational places
• schools
• government agencies
• clinics
• retirement communities

Many nurses appreciate the flexible hours that they enjoy, as nurses. This allows them to keep a balance between their professional and personal lives.

2. Nursing can be demanding

On the other hand, the demand for nurses has become increasingly high, with about 6% of nursing positions being yet unfilled. This can place a strain at some healthcare facilities, requiring nurses to work overtime or even double shifts.

Furthermore, in certain situations, nurses need to provide patient care 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. Fortunately, certain methods can help nurses to cope with the situation. For instance, scrubs such as cheap landau scrubs provide nurses with attire that is lightweight, comfortable, and hygienic. Nevertheless, providing around-the-clock nursing care for a patient can place a huge strain on the nurses themselves. This can result in both physical and emotional stress.

3. Nursing provides a solid salary and benefits

How much do nurse earn? According to official studies of the US government, RNs' median yearly earnings are about $52,000 (2004). During that year, RNs salaries ranged from about $37,000, to about $74,800. Those RNs working in emergency departments, and those with their own nursing practice, earned up to $90,000! Finally, several employers of nurses provide the workers with benefits such as bonuses, educational benefits, and childcare.

4. Nursing involves education and training

Education and training are vital in the field of nursing. All nurses must earn a nursing license, before they can practice in any state, as a nurse. Afterwards, nurses may renew their license. They can also hold licenses in multiple states. Finally, RNs can earn an associates', bachelors' or masters' degree in nursing, opening the doors for salary raises and promotions.

What is the world of nursing REALLY like? The aforementioned aspects include a few of the most important features of nurses' work, such wearing scrubs. Before knowing that you want to be a nurse, know what you would do!

How to Stay Motivated In Keeping Fit

By Alan Tii

Staying focus and determined in is one of the most important criteria towards keeping fit. People often give up halfway towards keeping fit when they lost focus and determination. At times like this, we will need to give ourselves that additional motivational force to encourage ourselves to be back on the right track once again.

With that in mind, I present you the top fitness tips used by most trainers to keep them motivated all the time:

1) Find a partner

Find someone who has the same burning passion as you towards fitness to be your fitness and diet partner. Give positive encourage to each other along the way. In this way, you won't give up too easily towards reaching your goal.

2) Set your goals

Set realistic goals that can be achieved in a certain time frame. Your goal can be ranging from simple goals like reduce carbohydrates intake for 1 month to more difficult goals like keeping to your fitness diet for 1 month. Many often give up halfway due to lack of goal setting. They often find themselves training aimlessly and overtime, they will lose motivation towards working out and give up.

3) Treat yourself

After you have achieved a certain goal within your stipulated time frame, reward yourself .Buy yourself a new pair of running shoes. Pamper yourself for that day by treating yourself a sumptuous meal of your favorite food. If you have been following religiously to your fitness diet all the while, a day of self-indulgence won't do serious harm to your body. However, restrict yourself to only one day and leave your next happy moments for your next reward day.

4) Take a Break

Feeling tired and exhausted from your workouts? Well, give your muscles a break then! Your muscles need to rest in order for them to grow significantly. Improvements in strength and fitness will only occur during the rest period after your hard training. This resting process takes at least 12-24 hours to complete. If sufficient rest is not given to your muscles, then complete regeneration cannot occur.

5) Music

Equip yourself with a portable music player and immerse yourself in your favorite music. But of course, if hard rock music is your favorite genre of music, listening to linkin park's song while working out is definitely not going to be beneficial for you. You will tend to follow the beat of the music and this will seriously affect the momentum of your workouts. Go for smoothing classical music to allow your heart and mind to be at peace while working out.

6) Think positively

The main reason why people often fail in keeping fit is because they always think negatively about working out. Even before starting the workouts, they are already thinking of the tiredness and sweat that the workouts will bring about and this negative thinking will deter them .The end result? They won't even want to start the workout anymore. Yes, working out is tiring and will indeed cause you perspiring like hell. However, the results are definitely worth all the sweat and hard work with you slowly chiseling your body towards a model-like body after every single workout. Therefore, the next time when you are about to start your usual exercise routine, think positively about the workouts. Overtime, you will find working out to be a fun-filling activity rather than a strenuous activity.

7) Take a before picture

Take a picture every now and then to monitor closely how your exercises are helping you to sculpture your body. For example, you could take photos of your body bi-weekly and compare week 1 photos with week 3 photos and so on. If you have been following closely to your effective workout routines and your fitness diet, you should be able to observe visible results to your body every fortnightly. These visible results will keep you stay motivated towards achieving your fitness goal.

Advocacy and Inquiry

By Terry Gault

Dialogue: Its Component Parts

The first step in dialogue is balancing Advocacy and Inquiry. Instead of making statements about what we believe, begin asking questions about what others believe. This is in accord with a principle articulated by Saint Francis and popularized by Stephen Covey:"Seek first to understand; and then to be understood."When I attack your position and repeat my own, I strengthen your attachment to your position. When I ask you about your position in a spirit of inquiry, however, and empathically paraphrase what you say, you tend to hold your viewpoint more gently. You are more open to other perspectives, increasing my potential for influence.


How do you balance advocacy and inquiry?

- Step back.

- Target your inquiry by asking questions to clarify what the other person believes.

- Examine the other person's mental maps.

- Suspend your own assumptions.

- Learn before you try to influence.

- Advocate your opinions through carefully chosen questions and statements.


The Rewards

- Building rapport

- Building business relationships

- Extending your influence


Tips for improved advocacy:

What to do

* State your assumptions, and describe the data that led to them. * Explain your assumptions. * Make your reasoning more explicit. * Explain the context of your point of view. * Give examples of what you propose. As you speak, try to picture the other person's perspective on what you are saying. * Encourage others to explore your model, your assumptions and your data. Refrain from defensiveness when your ideas are questioned. * Reveal where you are least clear in your thinking. * Even when advocating: listen, stay open and encourage others to provide different views.

What to say

* "Here's what I think, and here's how I got there." * "I assumed that . . . " * "I came to this conclusion because . . . " * "To get a clear picture of what I'm talking about, imagine that you're the customer who will be affected . . . " * "What do you think about what I just said?" or "Do you see any flaws in my reasoning?" or "What can you add?" * "Here's one aspect which you might help me think through . . . " * "Do you see it differently?"


Tips for improved inquiry:

What to do

* Gently walk others through their thinking process and find out from which data they are operating. * Use unaggressive language. Ask questions in a way that does not provoke defensiveness or "lead the witness." * Draw out their reasoning. Find out as much as you can about why they are saying what they're saying. * Explain your reasons for inquiring, and how your inquiry relates to your own concerns, hopes and needs. * Test what others say by asking for broader contexts or examples. * Listen for new understanding that may emerge. * Check your understanding of what others say.What to say* "What leads you to conclude that?" * "What data do you have for that?" * "What causes you to say that?" * "Instead of "What do you mean?" or "What's your proof?" say "Can you help me understand your thinking here?" * "What is the significance of that?" "How does this relate to your other concerns?" "Where does your reasoning go next?" * "I'm asking you about your assumptions here because . . . " * "How would your proposal affect . . . ?" "Is this similar to . . . ?" * "Can you describe an example . . . ?" * "Am I correct that you're saying . . . ?"

Inquiry

What is the simplest way to move a conversation toward dialogue? Ask a Question! Whenever your conversation tends toward a discussion, where positions harden and frustration flares, turn the conversation around by asking questions.

As a conversation moves forward, continue to ask questions that relate directly and obviously to what the other person has been saying.

How Many Ways to Overcome Your Sleep Disorder?

By Mohan Khadka

Sometimes you lie in bed with open eyes and cannot sleep. Sometimes you fall asleep during the day and cannot focus on your work. If you have some of these symptoms, then we must draw your attention to your sleep process. As if you spend too much time trying to fall asleep in bed at night, then you might have a sleep dysfunction. It is really disturbing for people's every day life. Those people who do not have quality sleep at night usually suffer from fatigue with low energy and yawning during the day. All these factors can lead to mental and body disorders, which can spring into accidents and influence relations. In general, bad sleep changes your mood state and disconnects you from the world. There are many ways to regulate sleep disorders: diet, supplement nutrition, herb therapy, physical exercises, meditation, relaxation, sensory practicing or cognitive techniques.

We would like to offer to you some of these methods that might help you to solve issues with your night sleep.

1. Keep your mind busy with the counting or word spelling. The key factor is that you relax your brain by engaging it to do a monotonous task.

2. Alternatively tensing or relaxing the main muscles of your body help to conquer a sleep disorder. Just lie down comfortable and tense then relax your muscles. Start with your toes and go on with all your body muscles. For more details www.activities-little-fingers.com Perform this exercise from your feet to the top of your head. The secret is that your body listens to the orders of your mind and knows how to relax the muscles. Gradually you fall asleep. This is a conscious technique. It is called a progressive relaxation.

3. Deep breathing method is the great way to relax your body and get harmony in all your muscles. Profound breathing is a basic and essential component of yoga. Close your eyes and focus on breathing. In order to breath deeply engage your lower back, ribcage and belly. Make every next breath longer and deeper. Breathing is the very start of our lives. It is just a start. Breath slowly- you do not have any need to hurry up.

4. One of the ways to cope with your sleep disorder is listening to the silence in your ears. It is a very simple technique but rather productive and helpful one. Lay relaxed on your back and close your ears. You will hear a high and jingling sound. After listening to this sound for 15 minutes, relax your hands and sleep peacefully.

5. Another interesting and useful technique involves your feet, especially your toes. It might seem to you strange, but this method works. For more details www.tips-getting-healthy.com Lie down, close your eyes and relax. Now drag all your toes in the direction to your face. Count slowly to 10 in this position, relax your toes and count again 10. Repeat this sequence for 10-12 times.

6. Visualization or imagination technique is the most attractive method. First of all, it can be self-directed or guided by others. This process consists of two stages. Initially you have to relax your body by the means of deep breathing or some other techniques. Then the visualization itself starts. Here you are free to create and perform in your mind the most pleasant images.

7. Meditation is the contradictory to the visualization. Meditation requires your clear brain. Just focus on your breathing, an object or a word. This allows you to calm your thinking and achieve silence in your mind. Stop thinking; stop speaking in your mind. Thus you reach the quiet state and fall asleep.

If you perform some of these relaxation techniques every day, you mind and body will acquire a good habit of being able to relax. Good luck and have a nice sleep!

Average Nursing Salary

It is commonly known that there is a significant shortage of nurses not only in a specific country, but throughout the world. To all those who are interested and most importantly qualified in the field of nursing, you are all welcome.

Just like in any other profession, it is not all the time that professionals think of how much money they will be getting once they pursue a certain career. Though, let’s face it, it matters. Additionally, in most career fields, a person’s salary depends on certain factors. You may be receiving bigger pay than what your friend is getting from other place. This thing applies also in the world of nursing.

If you want to know how much the recent average is nursing salary, you are on the right page. However, you should know that an average nursing salary can be determined by the needs and capabilities of a community, work schedule, training, skills, and experience, which means that the information you will get from this article maybe a little different from place to place.

For registered nurses (RNs) working in the US, the average nursing salary is a little over $ 41, 600 every year. RNs with more than 3 years of experience are getting more than $ 47, 000, while those who are in the entry level are receiving more or less $ 39, 000 a year. Depending also on the position, the higher position, the average nursing salary could go as high as $ 60, 000 a year and over.

In a hospital setting, an average nursing salary is also affected depending on the specialization. Also, working in various healthcare institutions with different specializations could also mean different average nursing salary. The lowest annual average pay you can get is not less than $ 33,500 and the highest can reach up to $ 65,000 and more.

Even for the hourly paid nurses, there is also a variation on the rates. Depending on the demand of a nurse’s specialty and the kind of responsibilities she/he is tasked with, the rate could go up much higher. The entry level nursing salary per hour is approximately between $17.65 to $19.75 If basing on hospital bed size, hospitals with more than 500 bed size, the possible average nursing salary at an hourly rate can be $ 21.00.

Based on the range of the average nursing salary, it is clear that salary of nurses is dependent on a lot of factors, such as training, the kind of institution you are working with, your position, and the location of your work.

Nursing: Choosing A Specialty

By: Cynthia Andrews

The nursing profession is a wide open field with many career paths. In today's increasingly specialized world, it is becoming more common for nurses to specialize within their field. The decision to specialize in the nursing field is not one to take lightly. There are advantages and disadvantages, but for an increasing number of nurses it is becoming necessary.

Because of the relatively new practice of choosing a specialty field, each field has different requirements for specialization. There are also some that have no requirements at all. Certainly, a nurse who has worked for thirty years in the obstetrics department should consider that their specialty, but that is not the case when compared to a nurse choosing their specialty field after graduating from nursing school.

Not all nursing fields have formal specialization programs. Some, such as pediatrics, have a national certification program. Even in fields that do not have a national certification process, many hospitals have guidelines for working in a specialized field. Many hospitals recommend that a recent nursing school graduate should work for at least one year on a general medicine floor before moving into any specialty. Nursing schools provide students with intensive training, and the year spent working in the hospital setting should provide invaluable experience in helping the young nurse refine skills and gain confidence.

Once you feel competent in general nursing, you may want to consider choosing a specialty field. Specializing often makes it easier to find a job in your chosen field, and it is possible to draw a higher salary by having skills that are in demand. Once you work in a specialized field, it may become difficult to gain employment outside this field, because employers may be concerned that your skills in some areas may not be up to date. For this reason, it is important to think carefully about what type of specialty you may want to work in before you commit.

Know what is required

Be sure to consider all sides of a specialty before deciding if it is the one for you. While many nurses think they want to work with babies, in reality, the NICU, while full of babies, is a stressful place to work, especially for a young nurse, who may have young children at home, or be thinking of starting a family.

Other nurses may want to work with the elderly, and while this can certainly be rewarding, it often requires a great deal of physical strength to help elderly patients with day-to-day tasks, so it is important to take that into consideration before making a decision.

Work in Different Areas

The best way to learn what is required in each nursing specialty is to work in different areas. Even if you do not work in the area that you are considering specializing in, you can still gain insight into the differences between the available nursing fields. Many hospitals hire “float” nurses that rotate through a variety of positions, filling in on different floors as needed. This is an excellent way to gain a variety of experience.

Network

Before choosing a specialty, take the time to talk with people who work in the specialty that you are considering. The more people you talk to, the better understanding you can gain for the type of work that is required and how rewarding the career path is. Talk with people who are happy in their job as well as those who are not. Remember that what makes one person happy is not the same for another person. While you may relish working independently, someone else may feel isolated. The more nurses you talk with, the better understanding you can gain for the different nursing specialties.

What does the future look like?

Before committing the time and money to specialized training, you should consider the job outlook for your particular career. If the specialty requires intensive classes that you must take on your off duty hours and pay for on your own, and the outlook is stagnate, it may not be the best choice for you. If you can specialize in a career by taking in-service classes while continuing education, which you would be required to take anyway, or the job growth is the specialty is growing, it is probably a good field to choose.

Don't sweat it

Regardless of the choice that you make, it is reversible. Once you have your nursing degree, you are highly employable, regardless of the field of nursing in which you have experience. If you choose one area of nursing, and find that it is not a good fit, it is easy enough to move into another branch of nursing. You can make the switch easier by keeping your skills up to date and working an occasional shift on a floor outside your specialty.

Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation gave $12 million in Nursing Grants for 2008-2009

The Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation (PHEF) Board of Directors today announced funding allocations for its Nursing Education Grants for the 2008-09 academic year. PHEF will distribute the grants to Pennsylvania nursing education schools statewide to assist in the creation and retention of new nursing students and nurse educators.

LPN and RN programs at 127 Pennsylvania Schools of Nursing will receive a total of $10.4 million while 35 Graduate Schools of Nursing will share $3 million in grant funding. The Nursing Education Grant awards for individual nursing schools will be announced in July.

“The Foundation has contributed more than $66 million through its various programs in support of Pennsylvania nursing students since 2003,” said Representative William Adolph, Foundation Board member. “It is vitally important that we continue assisting students and nursing schools because the health of our citizens is ultimately at stake.”

“The beauty of the Foundation's student aid programs is that they are privately-funded by generous donors from the healthcare community as well as private individuals,” noted Senator Sean Logan. “In today's difficult economic environment it would be extremely difficult for the State to fund these important programs that are so vital to the health of our citizens.”

The PHEF Nursing Education Grant Program was created to help reverse Pennsylvania's nursing shortage by generating non-taxpayer supported funding which otherwise is not available to schools of nursing. This funding, in turn, helps Pennsylvania schools increase the recruitment and retention rates of their nursing programs, providing more qualified nurses for the citizens of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania nursing schools must submit an award proposal to PHEF to receive Nursing Education Grants. Once approved, the nursing schools administer and distribute the awards to their qualifying students based on their unique awarding criteria. Nursing students should contact their school's financial aid office or nursing department for eligibility information.

In addition to the funding for the Nursing Education Grants, the PHEF Board approved more than $1 million to provide awards through the Dr. Edna McKenzie Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students program. Ninety-seven Pennsylvania schools of nursing will each receive $10,310 in scholarship money. The scholarship is named for the late Dr. Edna McKenzie, a distinguished educator, long-time member of the PHEF Board, and noted African American historian.

PHEF was created five years ago and began offering financial support shortly thereafter to help students afford their nursing education. The Foundation currently offers numerous aid programs for students, including:

- Nursing Education Grants
- Nurse Scholars Program for graduate nursing students
- Low-income Nursing Students Tax Credit Program
- Graduate Nurse Education Grant- Nursing Faculty Development Grants
- Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students
- The Foundation also supports the Big 33 Nursing Scholarship Program and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Health Occupation Students of America (Penn Hosa) Scholarship Program

“Nursing students frequently tell me how important these awards are to them,” said Elinor Z. Taylor, PHEF Board Chairman. “Sometimes the Foundation's awards make the difference between continuing their program of study or dropping out. With the shortage of nurses we are experiencing, every nursing student that graduates is important.”

For more information on PHEF's student aid programs for nursing students, visit FuturesInNursing.org.

PHEF & The Pennsylvania Nursing Assistance Fund

Purpose

The Pennsylvania Nursing Assistance Fund of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation was established to provide assistance to students and schools for nursing education in Pennsylvania. The fund will provide grant and scholarship monies to nursing students through the use of donations from individuals and organizations directed to Pennsylvania schools of nursing.

Overview

Until recently, the equilibrium of new nurses entering the profession versus tenured nurses retiring remained stable. However, the cycle of quality health care will quickly decline because although demands on the nursing profession are increasing, new entries in the profession are not keeping pace with planned retirements.

Through the Pennsylvania Nursing Assistance Fund, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation hopes to reverse this trend by giving students access to nursing education by offering grants or scholarships that otherwise would not be available.

The Pennsylvania Nursing Assistance Fund will directly impact the number of educational opportunities students and schools will have to help the Commonwealth continue its cycle of quality health care.

There are numerous flexible giving opportunities for donors to participate in this fund with specific schools, student populations and programs in mind, based on individual interests and relationships. Scholarship and grant naming opportunities as well as generous matching funds from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Foundation are available to foundation, corporate and individual donors.

Guidelines

For information on guidelines, or to find out if your institution is a recipient of the Pennsylvania Nursing Assistance Fund, contact your school’s nursing department. Contact the Foundation office for more information on giving opportunities.

The Biggest Problem In Your Department

By Damian Driessen

People.

Yes, that's right; the people in your workplace are, well, people. We sometimes lose sight of this fact. It would do us a world of good if we remembered this little piece of information once in a while. And yes, these "people" are just like us. They are here to earn a living. They have good days. They have bad days. They even have the occasional emotional outburst. Not that we would ever do something like that!

Work is a place where we can really leverage our ability and see magical things happen. We can derive great satisfaction from seeing something achieved. However, it is rare that we can do it all alone. Usually, every achievement is the result of many tiny cogs working together to generate the result. Your co-workers, you and me; we are all tiny cogs in a larger entity, called the workplace.

The workplace is where each worker brings their unique contribution. We are all employed to produce something (usually more profits) for our employer. But this production can only occur as each of us brings our contribution. Although we each may have ambitions and targets to reach, in this place we need to work together for the good of the company.

Difficulties will arise in the workplace; we are all just people after all. We often have strong opinions on what needs to be done. However, not everyone is going to agree with us. When we encounter these kinds of issues we usually choose to fight or run away. There is another option that we often forget about. The other option; take a look at the situation from a new perspective. We understand this perspective in sport, but we often forget it in the workplace.

Play the ball, not the man. Do you remember your coach drilling that rule into you? This sage advice is just as relevant in what we face at work. There is no point attacking the person's behavior. They are people just like us remember? Rather than attacking them, the better option is to play the ball. What is the position here and what is at stake? What is the best result for the employer, for my co-worker and for me? If you emotionally respond to the co-worker you may win a minor tactical victory, but in the overall strategy everyone has lost. And remember, they may just be having a bad day. I'm had them, I'm sure you have too. We all do from time to time.

Burnout: The Effects Of Unavoidable Job Stress

By Douglas Hardwick, Ph.D.


Stress seems to be an inevitable part of any job. Even minor things can lead to feelings of stress. Petty arguments with supervisors and conflicts with co-workers are among the most common every day stressors. For some employees, however, the level of stress experienced goes far beyond job strain and the irritation of daily hassles. For some employees, the level of stress experienced on the job builds up until it is overwhelming and leads to a condition called burnout.

What is burnout? In general, burnout is described as emotional exhaustion. The most common symptoms associated with this emotional exhaustion include overwhelming fatigue, headaches, stomachaches, and impaired sleep. And, as burnout develops, it often leads to a deterioration in social skills. Individuals in the midst of burnout just do not interact with others as they did in the past. They often withdraw from others. They may lose patience more easily. They may become more abrupt and abrasive in their dealings with others. Their language on the job may become cruder. They may appear to be moody and depressed.

Over time, burnout has profound effects on job performance. Simply put, job performance suffers. Victims of burnout are likely to reduce the amount of work they do. They may avoid tasks that they find most stressful. Their absenteeism is likely to increase. In the worst case, they may suddenly quit their jobs with little notice to their employers. Supervisors may not be able to recognize burnout for what it is, but they certainly will notice the effects of burnout on job performance.

Burnout often occurs in those jobs we think of as the helping professions. Professions such as teaching, law enforcement, nursing, and social work are all potential breeding grounds for burnout. Interestingly, within these professions, burnout tends to strike the most dedicated and most idealistic individuals. While burnout has been observed for years in the so-called helping professions, it can occur in a wide range of jobs. The key seems to be the presence of inescapable, day-to-day frustrations which build up overtime.

The frustrations that lead to burnout can take many forms. Studies of professions such as teaching and nursing have suggested that burnout occurs when workers begin to believe that no one appreciates the work they do or the help they provide. Over time the difficulty of their task and the presence of ambitious, but ambiguous, goals may lead them to believe that their efforts have no real impact. When the feeling "it doesn't matter what I do" sets in, burnout is not far behind. Of course, these feelings are not limited to the helping professions. Anytime workers feel overwhelmed by the demands of their job and think that there is little support for their efforts, burnout becomes a threat.

Fortunately, there are several things that can be done to eliminate or reduce the development of burnout. First of all, it is important for supervisors to actively support their subordinates, to treat them fairly, and to provide them with appropriate feedback. Second, it is important for employees to develop a realistic view of what they can accomplish on the job. Unrealistic goals are a recipe for frustration and stress. Third, employees need to maintain a balanced lifestyle. Individuals who blur the boundaries between work and home are good candidates for burnout. Finally, employees need to learn specific techniques for reducing and managing their own perceived levels of stress. These techniques may include exercise and various relaxation procedures. Meditation, tai chi, and qigong are all examples of holistic health practices that might prove helpful. Practitioners have long argued that these disciplines enhance relaxation and reduce stress in the individual.

9 Steps To Become A Travel Nurse

By Hina Kamadia

If you go to a website that belongs to a nurse recruitment company, they will have a similar article to this one. But one of the first things they will tell you is to choose a company to work with.

WRONG!

Step 1. Decide where you want to travel. This will dictate which company you go with.Are you looking to live in a large city or small town? East or west coast? Maybe even Hawaii or Alaska? Your location plays a large role in your next decisions.

Step 2. Decide what you want from your travel company.What benefits do you want? Do you require private housing or is a roommate ok? Do you want your housing paid or 100% or will you pay for part of it? Do you want your insurance to start the day you start with the company or is it ok to wait one month after you start working?

All these are benefits that the travel companies play with the get the best package for themselves. If the travel company can get you to pay for something, it will. If you say no, they will pay for it rather then lose you as a client.

Step 3. Research travel companies online.Some companies like American Mobile are very large and have lots of assignments all around the country. So do their sister companies: Medical Express, Preferred Healthcare, Nurses RX, Grady Peyton, and NurseChoice. Other smaller travel companies specialize in one geographic area: like California, or Hawaii.

Step 4. Get these companies to contact you.Filling out their application will mean getting calls and emails from several of the companies. They are almost desperate to have you as a client.

Or you can just contact one or two that you really like, but remember, if one company can do something, the others can as well. Except when it comes to assignments. The larger companies typically have more contracts with more hospitals which means more assignments to choose from.

Step 5. Talk to the recruiters.You want a recruiter that you get along with, is knowledgeable, and that you can trust. This person will be your lifeline while you are traveling. If this person is not responsive now, while they are still trying to get you as a client, they will not be responsive when they have to work for you.

Since you already have your destination choose, hare this with all the recruiters and make them give you a list of all available assignments that they have.

Step 6. Compare all the assignment including pay and scheduling. Also compare the recruiters and company benefits. Choose the company that best offers what you want.

Step 7. Fill out all the forms for the travel company (there are a lot). You also need to apply for a license in the state you are traveling to.

Step 8. Once you are ready to go, you must interview with the hospital you have chosen to work at. They will decide if they want you and you decide if you want them. If it is a yes from both sides, you are ready to go.

Step 9, Get your housing assignment from your travel company, and get all your affairs in order and go!