What Are the Requirements to Become a Travel Nurse?
A travel nurse is one type of career path within the nursing industry. Travel nurses make an average of $1,763 per week and some can make up to $4,000 depending on where they are stationed, according to Becker’s ASC Review. Travel nursing is a specialized field that requires certain skill sets and education. Here’s what you need to know about the requirements for taking on a travel nurse job.
What Does a Travel Nurse Do?
A travel nurse is a nursing professional who works for agencies instead of one particular medical facility. These professionals can work locally, nationally, or even internationally around the world. This type of career path provides a great amount of flexibility and works well for those who want to pursue a career in the medical field and also see different places and work in different medical facilities.
How Do You Become a Travel Nurse?
The requirements to become a travel nurse are similar to becoming a regular nurse. The baseline requirements are actually the same. You must receive your nursing education through an accredited institution. You can earn an RN this way, which is the first step to becoming a nurse of any kind. A person would also need to apply for a license. This allows you to work legally in a medical facility. It’s often required that you have already had clinical experience as well.
If you want the best opportunities for a travel nurse job, then you should plan to work for at least two years as an RN in another type of environment such as a hospital or doctor’s office.
Additional Skills
In order to be successful in a travel nurse job, you need to have a tremendous amount of flexibility. You also need good communication skills as it’s likely you’ll be working in new environments on a regular basis and with new teams. Knowing how to communicate effectively with anyone you meet will be a huge bonus.
Special Licensing
In most cases, a travel nurse will only need to maintain their license in the state that they are a permanent resident in. It’s not usually necessary to get licensing in every location you might travel to.
This is some basic information on how to become a travel nurse. If you’d like to learn more about landing a travel nurse job or getting into nursing programs, please contact us at Concentric Healthcare Staffing today.
Posted 7/17/24
