Travel Nursing Advice – Painting the House

As a nurse who has been there and done that, one of the nursing experience I have under my belt is that of being a travel nurse.

I remember once taking a 6 month job in Atlanta. By that time I was a pretty experienced nurse and nothing could scare me in terms of my nursing duties.

However, I did earn one new learning experience and that is the renting laws and your deposit in Atlanta.

You see, I wa kind of new in the renting department at the time and I had rented this nice 3 bedroom home inthe Marietta, GA area. I loved that home and I really took care of it despite it’s heavy rental cost.

When it came time for me to leave, the landlord was not a very nice man. He told me that he would have to keep the deposit because he had to repaint the inside of the walls because they were stained. I had nothing to do wit the stains of the home but he told me that they were not stained as nothing had been mentioned in the walkthrough of the house when I signed te contract.

Considering thay my deposit was a pretty big chunk of money for me this situation was not acceptable.

I told him that I would get the walls repainted myself so that I could get my deposit back. I figure that it would be cheaper to hire a couple of Atlanta painting contractors then to leave the landlord with my $2,000 deposit.

I was in for a surprise…

I looked everywhere for a decent contractor and after three days of searching and getting quotes that bordered on the ridiculous I finally chose one company which ended up costing me clost to $1000.

In the end, I ended up losing $1000 from my deposit to repaint the interior of my Atlanta home rental.

So here is a bit of advice for you travelling nurses, do not take anything for granted when you move in to your temporary home.  Make sure that you point out anything that is wrong with home when you move in and it’s a good idea to read on how to protect youself as a renter.  Being a travel nurse in a foreign city can be tough since you have no real  source of support so watch out for yourself.

Long Term Nursing Shortage

I know that I have mentioned the nursing shortage several times already and that it has been going on for a number of years already but that is because it is still here and is not going to go away any time soon.

The downward economy of the country has helped some as full time and part time  nurses have been requesting to work more shifts or extra hours to equalize the loss of income from either their spouse or to build up their nest egg in case of a worst case scenario.

Nurse staffing agencies have helped to alleviate the short term nurse shortage but hospitals are worried about the long term nurse shortage as travel nurses and per diem nurses only offer temporary solutions.

As the economy of the country improves and hospitals and other healthcare facilities are able to fit in their budget the acquisition of full time nurses, the nursing shortage will increase.

Australian Govt. Gives the Nursing Industry a Cash Injection

I was reading this article, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/respite-for-nurses-who-are-run-off-their-feet/story-fn59niix-1225897214737 about the Australian government helping out their healthcare system by spending extra money on training more nurses for its hospitals.

Its a commendable initiative that I hope other world government will follow.

The process used to find a Nurse

Finding or create a good list of nurses that are registered and licensed in specific states is a difficult task which involves many hours of looking for fresh and up-to-date database of nurses.

Any hospital or healthcare agency that are doing a nurse search must go thru several nurse database to find the right candidate.  This process alone is a long and harduous task.

Here are some tips on how to find, sort and filter different nurse database if you use a nurse staffing company in your search for a nurse.

1.  Ask about their screening process and what kind of work in involved.

2. Criminal checks, how often do they do them and do they give you a copy of the results.

3. What government agency do they use to perform the certification verification?

4. Do they check a nurse’s references and what kind of questions do they ask.

If you choose to create a database from scratch, then here are some ways to crate your own list of nurses:

1. advertise on the internet, in newspapers, magazines, on the radio, etc…

2. Make flyers and post them at your local nursing or medical college

3. Start going to job fairs

4. If you have a website, make a page where you can accept resumes online and advertise that page.

Nurse Strike – Solutions and Not Excuses

Today, the Minneapolis nurses are voting to see whether they will go on a longer strike.  Its a sad thing that they feel foreced to make such a vote because a compromise cannot be reached with the  Minneapolis hospitals.

I am sure that all of the nurses feel torn inside as they have all devoted their life to provide the best patient care possible. 

The hospitals in a statement said, “There is no benefit to a strike and we saw that on June 10,” said Maureen Schriner, a spokeswoman for the hospitals. “We need to have contract negotiations that recognize the reality of the health care environment.”

True as it may be, there is always a way for both parties to come to an agreement.  Yes, the economy may be difficult at the moment but that excuse is always used by companies.  If they look deep and hard enough in the budget and int he books, they can find a way to meet the nurses halfway.  Do the executives and so on really need to have an budget for travel expenses and remodelling thier offices? 

Perhaps its time for both groups to look at the hospital budget and see how this can all be worked out by seeing how money can be diverted or share into hiring more nurses.   Perhaps the hopsital could also see on how they can create more money thru fund raisers and such.

The point is that yes, it is possible to make come up with a compromise if both parties are willing.  I’m sure that if the hospital agreed to add 200 or so mor enurses to the staff and with the promise to add more nurses once the economy reaches a certain point, the nurses would agree to it.

Nursing: Its not about Money, its about Caring

If you have seen the news recently, you will have noticed that over 12,000 nurses in Minnesota went on strike on June 10, 2010.  This strike however was not about a pay increase but about the patients.

In simple words, even though the nurses did ask for a 3% pay increase, which according to them was used as a bargaining tool for the real demands, in a nutshell, the nurses are asking for more nurses to take care  of the patients.

For  the moment, talks have resumed between the nurses and the hopsitals.

The striking nurses in Minnesota are doing what was bound to happen sooner or later.  A hospital is expensive to run but nevertheless, its still a company that is set out to make money( not counting the state owned ones of course).  There is nothing wrong making a profit but when it jeopardizes the care of patients, that is when a problem occurs, especially if the share owners, board of directors and upper level management are still making millions of dollars in bonuses.

Marketing Yourself as Nurse with Language Skills

Today, I was reading an article about Naoto Kan who is going to be stepping as Japan’s Prime Minister shortly and how he has had many meetings with advisors to deal with the issue of “beefing up the nursing industry as Japan’s population continues to age”.

Market Yourself as a Nurse

With this in mind and seeing how the nurse shortage crisis may not just be limited to a few countries(like the U.S) but may also becoming a global issue, American registered nurses and nursing students should consider learning another language to become more marketable.

When I say learn another language, I’m not just talking about just taking a few Berlitz classes but taking advance courses that specifically deal with medical terms such as the Seattle Language Institute. This way, a registered nurse could acquire a job in another country that pays more compettive salary or can ask for more money when she applies to a hospital.

If you plan on working in the United States, Spanish is a great language to know due to the large amount of migrant workers in certain parts of the country. Spanish, however, should not be considered the only option since in larger cities, they are many communities of immigrants like Chinese where many people have not yet learned the language.

It all depends on where you plan on living. For example, if you want to live in California, then learning Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese or Spanish would be a good choice. If you intend to live in Arizona or Texas, then Spanish would be the language of choice.

Another advantage of being a bilingual registered nurse is that it will give you that extra edge when applying for a nursing position as an employer would rather hire a bilingual nurse then one who is not.

Nursing as a Career

Nursing as a Career

I often give keynote speeches to universities and often I am asked by potential nurses whether being a registered nurse is a good choice in terms of stability and job security.

My answer is this:

Nursing  is right now considered a recession proof career because there will always be sick people around.  Not only that but currently, the baby boomers are all aging and whether they like it or not, this will provide a huge patient influx for the future.

Another item to take in consideration is that nursing schools are struggling to get new students and the demand for nurses is increasing because of the lack of new nurses.  Especially when the baby boomer nurses start to retire in hordes.

So yes, an excellent career choice in health care is nursing.