Travel Nurse Career

Core Nursing Responsibilities 

Like nurses on permanent assignments, travel nurses spend their workdays caring for patients. Some of their day-to-day duties include: 

• Assessing patients and recording crucial details about their symptoms, medications, and family medical history. 
• Cleaning, dressing, and inspecting wounds.
• Ensuring proper medication dosage and timing. 
• Contributing to the development of individualized treatment plans. 
• Collaborating with other healthcare professionals to maintain continuity of care.
• Updating and managing patient medical records.
• Drawing blood and collecting biological samples.
• Assisting with medical interventions such as dialysis, intubation, blood transfusions, and catheterization.
• Explaining medical problems and treatment options to patients.
• Supporting patients and their families as they navigate the healthcare system. 

Adapting to New Environments 

Because they frequently switch job assignments, travel nurses must be willing and able to adapt to changing work conditions. One month, they might provide end-of-life care to patients in a hospice facility; the next, they could oversee critical cases in the pediatric ward. Some assignments may place travel nurses in massive city hospitals with the latest technologies, while other roles could be in rural private practices with minimal equipment. Travel nurses also work with a different medical team at each job. This requires strong interpersonal skills and the ability to build rapport and adjust to new workplace cultures quickly. 

Specializations in Travel Nursing 

Nursing specialties offer travel nurses the opportunity to hone their expertise in specific domains. Travel nurses often concentrate their efforts on the following areas:

• Intensive care unit (ICU). Critical care nurses attend to ICU patients with severe and life-threatening medical conditions. They handle various tasks, including evaluating patients, taking vital signs, ordering tests, and supervising patients on cardiac monitors and ventilators. 
• Labor and delivery. By providing medical assistance during and immediately after childbirth, labor and delivery nurses reduce the risk of health complications while creating safe, comfortable environments for mothers and their babies.
• Pediatrics. Nurses who love working with children are often drawn to the pediatric specialty. Through compassionate emotional support and proficient treatment, pediatric nurses promote positive patient outcomes while helping families manage stressful health challenges.
• Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). When infants are born with severe health problems, they stay in the NICU to receive round-the-clock observation. NICU nurses, or neonatal nurses, check babies’ vital signs, manage medication, and operate incubators, ventilators, and other equipment. 
• Post-anesthesia care unit (PACU). Because anesthesia has inherent risks, hospitals and surgical centers rely on PACU nurses to monitor post-operative patients as they wake up. 
• Oncology. Travel nurses specializing in oncology focus on treating patients with cancer. They provide not only medical care but also emotional support, advocacy, and guidance.
• Surgical. Maintaining a sterile environment and assisting surgeons during operations, surgical nurses are essential in facilitating patient safety and well-being. 
• Emergency room (ER). In this fast-paced and high-stakes work environment, traveling RNs quickly assess, triage, and treat patients suffering from a range of serious ailments.