What is Travel Nursing: The Pros and Cons
You see it everywhere right now in the nursing profession. Hospitals are scrounging to find more nurses to walk through the door, trying to recruit in fast and more creative ways, and yet… organizations are still having to recruit travelers at the end of it all. As the nursing shortage becomes even more of a crisis today than yesterday, more nurses throughout the nation are leaving their home hospital units to go into travel nursing.
Before you take this leap into a whole new adventure, let’s take a deep dive of what travel nursing is all about.
What is travel nursing? According to Angelina Walker (2022) from nurse.org, “travel nurses are registered nurses who work in short-term roles at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities around the world” by filling “gaps in areas where there are nursing shortages.” Short-term is often defined by signing contracts with terms that can vary depending on the needs of the organization. Most contracts are 13-week assignments, but can be as short as 4-weeks or 8-weeks with an option to extend the contract if needed. Your contract will disclose the nurse-patient ratio, type of floors/units, and salary.
What is a typical salary for a travel nurse?
Your salary can vary depending on your specialty and the nature of these contracts. As of today, it is safe to say that you can see contracts guaranteeing $3,000 to $4,000 a week. Some contracts can be presented to you on an hourly basis and can be as high as $120-140 per hour. These rates may or may not include what you would receive for food and housing. These rates also do not include the additional benefits of the organization such as shift or surge bonuses.
Disclaimer: These rates are based on personal experience and may differ if you’re traveling outside the United States. When researching nursing salary statistics, the rates shown in reliable sites did not reflect the contracts that are present out there today (2022). I personally recommend reaching out to different travel agencies to get up-to-date and accurate salary rates.
Why is travel nursing on the rage right now?
Based on personal experience currently working in nursing management and with a few family members who currently travel nurse today, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a lot of our nurses to leave the nursing profession, making travel nursing the new trend amongst nurses. As of today, the truth is that you currently make more money travel nursing than you working at any healthcare organization. Hospitals are working hard to stay competitive in the workforce by trying to increase pay rates and benefits, but not enough to keep nurses out of travel nursing. It then creates this unfortunate and viscous cycle of the nursing shortage amongst organizations, forcing hospitals to recruit travel nurses to fill in holes and end up spending more money on enforcing contracts.
Nursing influencers on Instagram and Tiktok are spreading the wonders of travel nursing and how much money you could make, making it even more difficult for hospitals to compete who have no footprint in the social media world. The major pro out in the word of mouth right now in the nursing profession is, “Why should I stay in a hospital only to stretch our assignment ratios, take on more responsibilities, and make less money?”
What are the pros?
As mentioned before, the major pro to travel nursing today is the salary. You would absolutely be making more money travel nursing than you would working for a specific organization.
In no particular order, here are more pros to travel nursing:
You get to travel to a whole new state if you’d like
There is no commitment to the organization due to short-term contracts
You have options to travel locally and extend to different regions
What are the Cons?
The major con to travel nursing overall is the lack of advancement opportunities. Due to not having a home unit, it may be a bit more difficult to advance within the nursing profession if you are ever aiming for leadership and management opportunities.
In no particular order, here are more cons to travel nursing:
Contracts can be ended earlier depending your performance and the organization (if nursing needs change, contracts can be terminated earlier).
Rates in the future may differ and could fluctuate to decrease.
Not a consistent source of income.
Hope you all found this article useful to determine your next adventure. Like the post and comment below if you’re on your own journey to travel nursing!
References:
Walker, A. (2022). What does a travel nurse do and how can you make the most money as a travel nurse?” Retrieved from https://nurse.org/articles/how-to-make-the-most-money-as-a-travel-nurse/
