Planning to be a travel nurse? You have to evaluate the pros and cons of being a travel nurse before beginning this career choice. If you love traveling, a travel nurse career will be very rewarding to you.
Pros:
1. Travel a lot: Being a travel nurse gives you a unique travel experience. You can travel to different places and work there for a certain period before moving to another destination. You will be able to interact with locals from that area and learn something about their kind of life.
2. More money: Travel nurses are highly paid although this depends on compensation variables considered. There are states where you earn more money as a registered travel nurse and in others like California, you earn less.
3. Professional network opportunities: Being a travel nurse opens doors to expand your professional network opportunity. This is the best way to find a job or recommendation and extend your nursing career.
4. Get jobs more quickly: A travel nursing career is more flexible and you will be able to easily get a new job. You can work in a place for at least 3months and more to the next until you get an employer with good working conditions.
5. Tax-free money: Travel nurses are exempted from paying payroll taxes. They’re only required to maintain a ‘tax home’ to qualify for free tax stipends. They also receive tax-free money for incidental expenditure, lodging, and meals.
6. Visit different parts: As the names go ‘travel’, a travel nurse has a chance to visit different parts of the world.it is not possible to wake up and visit another country. You will have to save money on booking a hotel, flight ticket, and food. For this reason, you will spend more time reaching the budget. A travel nurse is paid to visit new cities in the country. In addition to that, you will get to meet new people and make many friends. You will also know about the best place to move to.
7. Improve experience: Travel nursing leads to the growth of the professional. Travel nurses get an opportunity to work in various hospitals. The hospitals have different problems, aims, equipment, staff, and procedures. This means that it is easy to learn new ideas such as writing reports, giving medications, and patient care. Also, you can work in mental hospitals, children’s units, and the different sizes of hospitals. This will not only make you competent as an employee but also contribute to improving the experience.
8. Network with many people: The professional network enables people to find jobs or advance in their fields. Travel nursing makes networking easy seeing that you are traveling to new places.
9. easy to get jobs: It is easy for a travel nurse to get good jobs easily. This is because they are more flexible. On top of that, a travel nurse works in a different set of hospitals. As a result of this, you get broad experience to compete for a job.
10. Reach a large population: Most developing countries do not get proper medical care like developed countries. The communities do not have enough qualified nurses to help the sick. Travel nurses find it fun to reach out to a large population in these communities.
Cons:
1. Stay away from family and friends: Being a travel nurse you can spend months or years without seeing your friends and family. You will not get all the support provided by family and friends.
2. Get lonely and homesick: As a travel nurse, you have to move from one location to another working and this may make you feel that, you have been far away from home for a long.
3. Frequent job search: An ideal contract for a travel nurse lasts 3 months, therefore, you have to keep on looking for your next location to practice your career if there is no extension of services in your current location.
4. Job application paperwork: To get maximum exposure to your travel nursing career, you have to register with various travel nursing companies and each one of them has a lengthy job application details and skills checklist. When you get a job, you also have to fill out all the required compliance-related documents. Some hospitals require you to complete certain training or do special examinations before hiring you.
5. Pay package changes: Each hospital may give you different compensation packages based on their bill rates. Agencies can also charge the hospital based on your working time at the hospital. The pay may also fluctuate making it difficult to budget when working as a travel nurse.
6. Unconcerned agencies: It is essential to consider the type of agency before you become a travel nurse. Not all agencies are the same. Some do not care about travel nurses. They care about making profits. On the contrary, others treat nurses as partners and friends. Ensure you have enough about a particular agency before you settle.
7. Too much traveling: Moving from one place to another is tiresome. A travel nurse is always moving frequently for jobs and not a vacation. This makes it tiresome.
8. Many state licenses: Travel nurses must have multiple licenses for different states. However, it is expensive to own many licenses. Furthermore, you must meet the requirements before you are issued a license. Another disadvantage is slow licensing, some states take more time to offer a license.
9. Negative perspective: Sometimes you meet different workmates who have negative attitudes towards travel nurses. Some claim that travel nurses are taking away their jobs. This type of environment is not welcoming to a new person.
10. Limited orientation: The process of orientation is not effective for travel nurses. Some hospitals do not give complete orientation hence the nurse lack important things during the first shift.
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