1. Nurses: Finish Education before Traveling
Because of the high availability of travel nursing jobs around the country, there's a temptation among younger nursing
students to try to take a traveling job as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) and put off becoming a registered nurse (RN)
until later. While that's certainly a viable option within the current medical climate, it may not necessarily be the best
one. If this is something you're thinking about, you might want to consider a couple of things first:
the availability of travel assignments for LPNs
the difficulty of restarting your education
the potential delay of marriage and family
Travel Jobs for LPNs
Doing a cursory Google search clearly shows there's
plenty of work available for the travel RN. But for the
LPN that's not always the case. There is work out there,
but it's not as plentiful as it is for the RN due to the fact
that most travel nursing jobs are staff level positions.
Furthermore, any healthcare facility can plug holes in
its LPN staffing by temporarily using RNs looking for
overtime or simply delegating more tasks to CNAs. But
state licensing regulations mean you can't go in the
other direction. When RN staffing holes exist, they have
to be filled using other RNs.
Restarting Your Education
This might potentially be the most important consideration of all. If you eventually want to be a travel RN, you're going
to need to stop traveling and go back to school; unless, that is, you can find an assignment with a long enough contract
to allow you to stay in that city and complete your education. But the chances of that happening are not so great. When
it's time to go back to school, certain choices have to be made; choices that become more difficult with every passing
year.
While you're currently in school, it makes sense to just stick with it and get it done. You can probably work locally as an
LPN while you're studying, so at least you're bringing in money and getting some valuable experience. But if you
interrupt your education to take a travel nursing job, you're probably going to find it more difficult to restart your
education and career later on. That's the very reason why so many adults find themselves trapped working in jobs they
never intended to take.
Marriage and Family
Finally, your plans for marriage and family are another important part of the equation. If you plan to have kids someday,
you'll probably find it impossible to raise them, work, and go to school all the same time. You're better off finishing your
education now, taking a travel RN position when you're through, and then stopping and settling down when you're ready
to have children.
If circumstances in your life change, you can always alter your plans to accommodate them. But by setting out to
accomplish things in this order you will be maximizing the likelihood that you'll succeed with both your career and family
goals.
Search for great nursing travel jobs and RN nursing positions at RN Network! The RN Network offers amazing traveling
nurse jobs with great pay and benefits. Updated daily with 100s of new traveling nurse Jobs.