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If you have a travel assignment with a staffing service that has more than one traveler at the assignment’s facility – or even in the city – your staffing firm may double you up in your apartment with another traveler.

Some travel staffing services do this to save money; housing two travelers within the same apartment can save considerably on the firm’s housing budget. Or it may have you share an apartment because it’s hoping to make it easy for you to connect with other travelers in the area. (Note: Not all travel staffing services do this. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask if you’ll be sharing housing with another traveler when you’re offered an assignment.)

Below are some tips on how to share housing with another traveler.

1. First, remember that you’re dealing with another professional, not someone in your college dorm room. Chances are the individual is a great deal more mature than your college roomie. This is a good thing.
2. If possible, contact your new roommate before your arrival. If the person is already there, you can get information on what the apartment is like, where it’s located, what kind of amenities are there, and so on.
3. Either before you arrive or soon after, you’ll want to discuss how food will be paid for. Most adult (post-college) roommate arrangements are set up so that each person buys food individually, with each designating one or two cupboards and one or more shelves in the refrigerator as his or her own. This helps ensure that disagreements over who purchased what and who ate what are kept to a bare minimum.
4. Discuss in advance who likes to bathe/shower in the evening and who likes to wash up in the morning. If both of you prefer the same time of day, work out schedules.
5. What is your comfort level when it comes to noise? If one of you loves to hear music while getting ready for work or throughout the day, and the other doesn’t, you’re going to have to work out an agreement on noise levels.
6. The same for goes for television use. Some people love to have the TV on as background noise all the time. Others hate TVs as background. See if you can come to an agreement about how much it will be on and when.
7. If both of you have the same work schedule, will both of you want to cook and eat together? This may be fun a few nights a week, but it shouldn’t be “mandatory.” Work this out between you two, especially about cooking and cleanup duties should you be eating at about the same time.
8. Will either roommate’s family and/or friends be coming for visits? Work out a schedule beforehand. This is especially important if spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends will be coming for overnight stays. Discuss this in advance and be sure to be as respectful as possible.

Have you ever roomed with a fellow healthcare traveler? If so, what kind of ground rules did the two of you find helpful?

If you’re a healthcare professional with a couple of years’ experience behind you and you’re interested in learning more about the many travel assignments we have available, contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing today.

f you’re an experienced speech language pathologist (SLP) and would like to work in California, take a look at this traveling position at one of MedPro Healthcare Staffing’s top healthcare clients in the Golden State.

You’ll need a current California license to practice as an SLP (or be “proactively” in the process of applying for it; contact us for more information). You’ll also need current certification in CPR and you must have CCCs.

Call us today to learn more about this position (and to learn what California city this assignment is located in).

Some things about California that you probably didn’t know:

• The state has the highest as well as the lowest points in the contiguous 48 states. What’s more, both are within just 100 miles of each other. Death Valley’s Bad Water area is 282 feet below sea level while Mt. Whitney’s highest peak reaches 14,495 feet above sea level (that’s almost three miles, by the way).
• California’s Inyo National Forest is the location of the oldest living species of pine cone; some of the trees there are believed to be more than 4,600 years old.
• The General Sherman Tree, located in the state’s Sequoia National Forest, is by volume the largest known living single stem tree on the planet.
• The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles is the largest outdoor amphitheater in the world.
• Various estimates put one out of every 10 or even as many as one out of every eight people who live in the United States as living in California.
• Many of them live in two of the top 10-most populous cities in the country, Los Angeles and San Diego.
• It’s believed that more than half a million detectable seismic tremors occur each year in California.
• Due to tectonic plate movement, geologists estimate that Los Angeles is moving eastward at about 1/5 of an inch each year.
• Reno, NV is actually further west than San Diego. (Take a look at a map of the United States if you don’t believe us.)
• San Bernardino County, its westernmost edge located about 40 miles east from downtown Los Angeles, is the largest county in the United States, encompassing three million acres.
• Put 85 of the world’s smallest countries together and the resulting land mass will still be smaller than California.
• The state’s Central Valley, at 75 miles wide and 430 miles long (north to south), is arguably the richest farming area in the history of the planet.
• Enough strawberries were grown in California in 1997 to circle the globe 15 times.

Want to experience California for yourself? If you’re a speech language pathologist with at least one or two years of professional experience, send your resume/CV to a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing today. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’re an RN, LPN, LVN or other nurse assistant and you’re wondering if now would be a good time to further your career with RN certification, a BSN or even an MSN, let us assure you that the answer is YES!

The critical nursing shortage touted over the last few years wasn’t as acute recently due to the recession, primarily for two reasons:

1. Nurses who had planned to retire didn’t and stayed in the workforce due to a spouse’s job loss.
2. Nurses who already were working part time upped their schedules to full time (often due to the aforementioned spousal loss of employment).

But while the recession mitigated the severity of the nursing shortage, other factors will help make the shortage critical once again relatively soon.

The American Nurses Association three issues will create a nursing shortage in the coming years. They are:

1. An aging nursing workforce. The median age for nurses in 2010 was 46 and more than half of the nursing workforce is nearing retirement.
2. The aging of the baby boomers. More than 8,000 boomers are turning 65 each day. One needs more medical care with age rather than less and the nation will need more RNs to help care for these seniors.
3. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) means more people will have health insurance. Which means more people will take advantage of that health insurance and visit physicians for checkups and wellness care. More nurses – as well as other health professionals – will be needed as a result.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Health projects (note it’s not saying it “predicts”), that the country will need 400K new nurses in by 2015 just to fill vacancies left by finally retiring nurses. The Department of Health projects even further to 2020, when it believes the country will be short between 800K and one million (italics ours) new and replacement nurses.

So is 2013 a good time to begin your journey to receive your RN, BSN or even MSN?

Once again, our short answer is: Yes!

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities already are clamoring for experienced RNs who want to work in short-term (13 weeks, on average) travel assignments. If you have at least two years behind you working as a nurse, send your CV/resume to a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing. We look forward to hearing from you.

Many healthcare professionals pursued work in this career sector because they’re caring and compassionate people.

This often extends to their time off the clock, as well, when they volunteer with different organizations within their community.

If you’re a healthcare traveler you may think that you won’t have the time or the opportunity to volunteer while on assignment. But you still can volunteer your time. Read below for some tips on how to do so.

1. Rethink what it means to be a volunteer. Many people think of good volunteers as those individuals who work with an organization week after week, month after month. But running in a 5k that supports a cause in which you believe is a form of volunteering. So is approaching your assignment city’s local Humane Society to see if you could offer to walk dogs a couple of times a week either before or after your shift for the weeks you’re on assignment.
2. If you volunteer at home with a national organization, contact its local office once you reach your assignment city. Ask about volunteer opportunities for you while you’re in town.
3. Many hospitals and medical facilities have blood drives, fundraisers, 5k benefit runs, and other community events several times throughout any given year. Offer to help at these events while you’re on assignment.
4. Search online for non-profit agencies in your assignment community and simply call them up to see if they need volunteers. They’re certain to welcome even “short-term” volunteers.
5. If you attend church regularly and plan to do so while on assignment, many churches have plenty of volunteering opportunities available.
6. Don’t forget that many organizations need people to write to state and national – and even international – government representatives. If the only time you have available to volunteer in person would be at night and you haven’t been able to find a lot of non-profits that need help during that time, consider contacting your charity of choice to see if it needs letters written as part of a campaign. You could easily set aside an hour or two a week to write letters on the charity’s behalf.

What’s been your experience volunteering while on a travel assignment? Did you find it difficult to do? Were the charities welcoming, even though you were only able to volunteer for a relatively short time?

We’re always on the lookout for “volunteers” seeking work as healthcare travelers. If you’re an experienced RN, OT, PT, speech therapist, pharmacist, or other allied healthcare worker, contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing to learn more about our many traveling opportunities across the country. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’re a radiologist, radiology tech or imaging professional, have you ever considered working as a healthcare traveler?

The benefits of doing so are many. Read below for five reasons why.

1. Travel! As a healthcare traveler, you’ll go to different hospitals and medical facilities in your city, your state or even around the country (you can choose where you’d like to work) that need your skills for assignments that last an average of 13 weeks.
2. Paid-for housing. Healthcare travel services typically put their travelers in well-equipped apartments close to the medical facility at which they’ll be working. Many of these apartments have pools, gyms and other amenities. Travelers who prefer to find their own housing arrangements will receive a housing stipend from the travel service to help pay for accommodations.
3. The chance to hone your people skills. As a traveler, you’ll be working with a vast variety of colleagues who live – and grew up in – areas of the country possibly quite different from your own. Their backgrounds and experiences will help you see the “way the world works” in a different light, encouraging you to expand your communication and people skills in ways you never before thought possible.
4. The opportunity to learn new techniques. Just as you’ll learn how to get along with all manner of colleagues and patients, so you’ll get the chance to learn new radiology/imaging techniques – or relearn old ones. The wealth of training you’ll receive on the job, no matter how experienced you are, is breathtaking. You may think you know it all, but working as a traveler will show you that there are always new ways of doing things.
5. You’ll work with new technologies. As a traveler, you’ll have the opportunity to work in large urban hospitals with the latest imaging software and equipment. You’ll also work in small suburban clinics and even tiny country healthcare offices. All will come equipped with a wide range of tools and technologies. You’ll relearn how to work with older equipment and you’ll learn how to manipulate and use the new.
   

Working as a travel healthcare professional will give you the chance to work with a wide variety of colleagues, patients and even equipment. If you’re a radiologist, radiology tech or imaging professional with at least one or two years’ professional experience, and you’d like to learn more about how working as a traveler can help your career, contact the recruiters at MedPro Healthcare Staffing. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’ve never been to New Mexico and have a hankering to get there before the real heat of summer arrives, check out our top job for a physical therapist to work in New Mexico. (Contact us to learn what New Mexico city this assignment is located in.)

In order to qualify for this position, you must have graduated from an accredited school and have a current New Mexico license as a registered PT (we can help you get the New Mexico license). You should have worked in a professional capacity as a PT for at least one or two years (two years are preferable). Your CPR certification also must be current.

Enough about the requirements for the job; let’s talk about New Mexico!

If you’re tired of crowds, New Mexico could definitely be the place for you: with a population of about 2,085,000 in a bit more than 121,000 square miles, it’s the sixth least-densely populated state in the country.

And, even though it’s located between Arizona and Texas (often thought of being predominately desert states), New Mexico actually is considered to be a part of the Mountain States.

New Mexico’s geography will take you from the aforementioned deserts (that are broken up by mesas) to snow-capped mountains such as Wheeler Peak (more than 13,000 feet above sea level). You can enjoy heavily forested mountains, especially in its northern area. In fact, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (which is where Wheeler Peak is located) are part of the southernmost area of the Rocky Mountains and run in a rough north-south pattern along the east side of the Rio Grande river in the state’s northern area.

You’ll be able to enjoy six (count ‘em!) national parks in New Mexico, including Carson National Forest, Gila National Forest, Cibola National Forest (with its headquarters in Albuquerque), and more.

If possible, while on assignment you’ll want to visit the famous Carlsbad Caverns, Aztec Ruins National Monument, the fabulous sand dunes of White Sands National Monument, the Rio Grande Gorge, and the other-worldly Shiprock (with a peak more than 7,000 feet above sea level), that looks just as its name implies – as a graceful ship making its way along the “sea” of the rising the desert floor. Shiprock is located in northern New Mexico.

As for the weather, you’ll have your pick. Temperatures can – and do – go above 100 degrees F in the summer months at elevations below 5,000 feet. But many New Mexico towns and cities can – and do – enjoy winter temperatures in the 20s or even the teens. You can go skiing in its mountain areas during the winter.

If you’re a PT with at least a year of professional experience and you’re interested in a travel assignment to New Mexico, contact a MedPro Healthcare Staffing recruiter today.

One of the many benefits of being a traveling nurse is that it can be a big boost for your resume in five different – and terrific – ways.

1. You can list on your resume the different facilities where you worked and give evidence of the different procedures, processes and ways of treating patients that you were exposed to. Through working at different facilities, you are able to learn multiple nursing procedures, which can add to your value to employers.
2. For example, one traveling RN may have worked at an acute care facility in Cincinnati, a medical facility known for its cutting edge care in treating burn victims. That same RN may also have worked at a progressive care unit in Miami, where he or she provided post-surgery nursing care services to cardiac patients. And that nurse may also have worked at a progressive care unit in Columbus, Ohio, providing specialty drug infusions. This nurse also worked in a cancer care unit at a CDE medical clinic in Madison, Wisconsin, where he or she gave chemotherapy for cancer patients, as well as PRBC, platelets and immunoglobulin infusions, and evaluating patient reactions to the treatment. Wouldn’t you sit up and take notice if that nurse’s resume crossed your desk?!
3. Your resume will also indicate the size of the facility you worked at, showing you have the versatility to work at a smaller facility, and the mettle to handle the stress at a larger facility.
4. Your resume will be able to give an indication of the various physicians and other healthcare professionals you worked with, showing your ability to handle different situations and work with different people.
5. Showing the different places where you worked as a traveling health professional shows that you have character traits employers value – that you have the energy and drive, adaptability, tenacity, and willingness to accept challenges.

Showing the different places where you worked gives employers an idea of your maturity. Someone who has traveled develops a broader perspective about the world, comes into contact with different people and customs and ways of doing things. Such a person is not one dimensional, but someone likely better at handling diverse situations and people, traits employers need.

Your experience as a traveling nurse will only make you more valuable to an employer when (or if) you decide you’d like to start working for just one facility again. It also makes you quite attractive as a traveler. The more traveling you do, the more skills and strategies you’ll learn, and the ever more valuable you become to your traveling service and its client facilities.

Interested in learning more about a career as a traveling RN? Contact a MedPro Healthcare Staffing recruiter today!

If you are looking for a healthcare staffing firm to work with, using one with a national reach can offer unique advantages.

The most obvious advantage is the choice of assignments that it can offer. Because a national firm works with hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities throughout the country, it has access to many more jobs, and many more types of jobs than a smaller firm might have. As a result, you are much more likely to find a job that fits you and at a facility that is to your liking than if you are dealing with smaller firm.

If you are looking for a medical center that offers certain specialties of care or types of treatment, a national staffing agency will be better able to find what you are looking for. So, the range of choices is greater.

Not only that, a national firm can provide you the opportunity to work in a location that appeals to you. If you dislike cold weather, you can get a position at a hospital in a southern state. If you enjoy skiing, you can take a job at a facility in one of the Rocky Mountain states. If you like the beach, you can look for something in Florida or California – or even Hawaii!

Working with a national firm gives you the opportunity for travel that would be unavailable otherwise. You can take a job on the East Coast and then move to the West Coast.

Working in such varied geographical areas also provides you with the opportunity to see how different healthcare organizations operate. It gives you a much greater chance to learn best practices. You also have occasion to work with a varied group of people.

And, while all staffing agencies are familiar with the healthcare providers they work with, national agencies, because of their reach, are able to develop a much deeper and broader knowledge of how different providers operate, and what those providers need. This is knowledge that could be invaluable to a traveling healthcare professional.

National agencies also offer a range of benefits you may not find elsewhere, such as travel reimbursement, health insurance, life insurance, short-and long-term disability insurance, 401(k), continuing education, and referral bonuses.

MedPro Healthcare Staffing is a traveling healthcare staffing firm with a national reach. We have opportunities from Hawaii to Maine, Oregon to Florida (and also in Kansas and Missouri!).

Take a look through our job board, and then contact a recruiter to learn more about being placed in an exciting travel employment opportunity.

To make your travel assignment the best it can be, especially if you plan to travel with children, preparation is obviously important. You also need to research the area that you will be going to and talk things over with your recruiter. It’s also important to maintain a flexible mindset.

Healthcare professionals who travel with their families should pack lightly, but include comfort items. Traveling healthcare providers should enroll children in similar activities from one assignment to the next. Traveling professionals should carry an up-to-date medical record for each child. Communicate openly with your travel nursing agency recruiter.

You should work with your staffing agency recruiter, who can help you with childcare and educational resources, such as information on school districts, preschool and daycare options. Some agencies will also provide you with websites for various attractions in the area.

To prevent problems with schooling, some traveling healthcare professionals only take their children with them during summertime. Experts counsel that children need continuity, so if you plan to take your children along, you may want to consider an assignment that will extend for the entire school year.

Since continuity is so important, some travelers try to bring familiar things along for their children, such as favorite toys. Another way to maintain the feeling of familiarity is to bring photographs of favorite places and things.

To find the best housing, it is important to maintain good communication with your recruiter. The staffing agency will generally check out the feasibility of finding adequate housing at your assignment location before you sign up for the work. Some travelers decide to find housing on their own, and accept a housing allowance instead.

When you are packing for an assignment, again, preparation is key. Check to find out what the weather is like at your destination. What are the average temperatures for the time of year you will be there? Check your living facility to find out what items are provided and what are not.

Most healthcare travelers travel solo. But that doesn’t mean you can’t bring your family along for the trip! Talk to MedPro Healthcare Staffing’s recruiters to learn more about healthcare travel assignments.

No matter if you work as a traveling nurse, OT, PT, speech therapist, pharmacist, or other traveling healthcare professional, you’re going to learn new skills, therapies and technologies that you never would have learned on the job if you stayed with one facility as a full-time employee. That’s just one reason why working as a traveling healthcare professional can be so good for your career.

What are some other ways you can grow in your travel career? Read below for some suggestions on where your work as a healthcare traveler can take you.

Naturally, your first thought might be that you’ll use your traveling career as a springboard to a promotion in a full-time position at a hospital or other medical facility. This definitely could be the case for you, due to the fact that healthcare travelers learn how to deal with all manner of people, move gracefully through facility “office politics,” grow their flexibility “muscles” and their ability to embrace change. Plus, as mentioned above, your skills will increase exponentially.

Many experienced travelers can become mentors, or even trainers, to other travelers while on assignment. Many facilities need several travelers at the same time in the same departments; so if you’re interested in mentoring other professionals, speak to your staffing supervisor about being placed on assignments where there will be plenty of other travelers. You’ll probably be supervising/mentoring in an informal capacity, at first. But keep talking to your staffing supervisor; traveling leadership opportunities while on assignment – as well as higher pay – do come up.

You also could speak to your staffing company about training/mentoring new travelers before they head out on assignment. You could do this between your own assignments. You could hold seminars and workshops on how to succeed as a traveler at the staffing service’s office, or you could hold these seminars remotely via video conference technologies.

And don’t forget working as a travel staffing recruiter yourself! Our industry is growing, and experienced healthcare professionals who have “been there, done that” would make a great addition to any travel staffing service’s team.

If you’ve been working as a healthcare professional for at least two years and are interested in learning more about how working as a traveler can advance your career, contact a MedPro Healthcare Staffing recruiter today!