MedPro

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.

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’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.

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.

Working in healthcare can mean going back to school – a lot. Whether it’s for an advanced degree or taking the time to go to a conference or seminar for continuing education credits and requirements, healthcare professionals are pretty much required to keep on keeping on when it comes to education.

But what if you’re a healthcare traveler? Some CE seminars can be a few days or weeks long. A master’s or doctorate degree in your field can take months or years. How can you continue to travel while pursuing more education?

Read below for some strategies. As a side note, these strategies are best deployed after you’ve been working with a travel staffing service for at least two or three assignments. You’ve become a proven and trusted employee and your staffing manager(s) may be more willing to accommodate your needs.

• Aim to take on assignments either close to home or close to your educational institution. Doing so will allow you to study in a program designed for working adults more easily. That is, you can work during the day and take your classes at night.
• With that in mind, ask your staffing manager for day-shift assignments only.
• Work with your travel staffing service so that you will take on only those assignments of 13-weeks or fewer.
• If you wish to take a multi week, full-time certification course, speak with your staffing manager about not taking one or more assignments for a set period of time (a few weeks, a couple of months), while you’re taking the course.
• Ask your staffing manager if you could take travel assignments that are part time. For example, you work three days on and four days off. Or you work just four- or six-hour shifts.

One thing you should do as you approach your staffing manager about a “non-traditional” traveling calendar is to talk up how the additional degree or certification will make you more attractive to the staffing firm’s clientele – and, therefore, more marketable for the staffing firm.

The great thing about traveling is that it can give you greater flexibility than working for one hospital, clinic or other medical facility. Contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing today to learn more about our many traveling opportunities.

If one or more of your PT travel assignments has you working with the elderly, read below for some tips on how to work successfully with this cohort of individuals.

You may think that all aging bodies are the same. And you’d be right – to some extent. For example, many PT experts believe that everyone older than age 65 will have some form of arthritis in their spines.

Yet everyone’s body is different. And each of your patients will have a musculature as unique and individual as they are.

For example, some of your patients may be former (or even current) athletes. Any injuries they may have suffered as a youth or young adult now may be coming back at them in a big way as joints stiffen. Other patients may be recovering from minor or major strokes and will be working with you to recover the best range of motion they can. Still others well into their 70s or 80s were doing just dandy until a fall and now must regain balance and their strength. Other seniors may simply want to enjoy the simple things in life, such as kneeling for prayer or working in a beloved garden.

So the foremost thing to remember is that older patients are as individual as your younger patients. Yet another important thing to remember is that the main goal for most of your senior patients is to keep or re-establish their independence. It’s the rare individual who automatically accepts – or resigns himself to – a life of physical dependency. Instead, seniors, just like the rest of us, want to keep moving and functioning under their own steam.

Many seniors will seek out a physical therapist in order to keep or restore flexibility as well as retain – or restore – the endurance necessary to complete the day-to-day tasks of living.

It’s therefore critical that you and your senior patients together set goals that are realistic and will also give them the wherewithal to live independent lives as much as possible.

Some of the things your patients may be dealing with when they come to you could include one or more of the following:

• Incontinence
• Osteoporosis
• Cancer
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Parkinson’s Disease

You’re also going to want to keep your patient’s family and/or caregivers in mind during the course of treatment. Family members or caregivers are critical to ensuring that the patient follows the treatment plan at home. A family member who encourages and supports the patient in doing any at-home exercises you prescribe can go a long way to ensuring that the exercises get done. In contrast, a family member or caregiver who doesn’t understand the importance of doing the exercises at home, or even pooh-poohs them, can go a long way to ensuring that your patient fails to perform the exercises without you.

So it’s important that you meet with at least one person who either lives with your patient or cares for him or her to discuss any at-home treatment you may prescribe in order to get the family member’s/caregiver’s buy-in.

Are you a physical therapist with at least one or two years of professional experience who is thinking about a career as a traveler? If so, don’t hesitate to contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing. Send us your resume/CV today!

In a perfect world, you could sign up with a traveling healthcare staffing service and then just pick and choose where you want to work, pack your bags and head on out to assignments across the country.

We don’t have to tell you that the world isn’t perfect.

The truth is that licensing requirements within your profession in different states can make the process of accepting and working in different states a tad problematic. Notice we didn’t say impossible. But receiving licensure in different states can take a few weeks to a few months.

Your staffing manager at a traveling healthcare staffing service such as MedPro Healthcare Staffing often can help you with the application process, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Below are some very brief overviews of the licensure requirements for three healthcare professions.

Nursing. The licensure timeline (from application to acceptance) for states can vary from 2 weeks to 6-9 weeks, so it’s best to get that paperwork started quite early if you’re interested in a position in, for example, New York (6-8 weeks). Some states also require special fingerprints or background checks. Find the licensure requirements and contact information for the state(s) you’re interested in here.

Therapy. The timeline in some states is just seven business days (Kentucky), but some (such as California) have a timeline of 6-8 weeks. Some states also require fingerprint/background checks. Here’s the link to our licensure contact information for different states.

Allied Health. Respiratory therapists can expect the licensure process to take anywhere from 1-2 to 6-8 weeks, depending on a state’s requirements. At least one state (California) requires that you have a two-year degree. Learn more here.

Here at MedPro Healthcare Staffing, your recruiter will help you through the licensure process. You must understand, however, that acquiring the necessary licensure(s) is your responsibility, not ours. If you have any questions at all, please let us know. We’re here to help you in any way we can so that you may join the ranks of healthcare professionals who are enjoying the exciting career of the traveler. Contact us today.

Traveling healthcare professionals get a double whammy of exposure to illness. First, you’re (usually) working around sick people. Some of them incredibly ill. Second, you’re traveling a ton, riding on planes, trains and automobiles, becoming exposed to all manner of people – and their colds and flu bugs.

Read below for some tips on how to stay healthy and work around this double shot of ick that’s aimed right at you.

The best advice is applicable to anyone who works in an environment where you are surrounded by people, whether they’re healthy or not:

1. Wash your hands frequently. You know this already, of course, but it always bears repeating. Wash your hands after caring for patients. Wash your hands after greeting people. Wash your hands after cleaning a patient room. Wash your hands after hugging your family hello when you return from work.
2. Wipe down surfaces with disinfectant. If people touch it, see if you can wipe it down.
3. Keep a small case of disinfectant wipes in your purse, satchel or briefcase, in order to keep them handy.
4. Drink water until you feel your insides are going to float away. Water removes toxins from our bodies, so flushing your system with this miracle liquid is a great way to keep illness at bay.
5. Exercise. Get that heart pumping! It’s best if you could get your heart rate going at a good clip for 30-60 minutes five or six days a week. At bare minimum, get your heart pumping at least three times a week for 30 minutes each session.
6. Watch the junk food. Aim to eat as healthfully as possible. That means double up on fresh fruits and vegetables. Watch the saturated fats and the foods with processed sugars, such as cookies, cakes, pies, sodas, and other junk foods.
7. Speaking of food, as you say no to the bad stuff, you might consider eating nature’s own flu and cold fighters, such as zinc supplements, which are known to help arrest colds; garlic, which might boost your immune system; and vitamin C (of course!).
8. Cut back on alcohol and if you haven’t done so yet, quit smoking.
9. When traveling, you’ll want to wash your hands frequently and keep those disinfectant gels and wipes nearby because you know that people generally wash their hands even less frequently than your healthcare colleagues, so you need to double up on the preventive measures. You also might consider taking Airborne or some other type of cold-prevention supplement (research has found that these don’t help keep you from getting sick, but many individuals swear by them), as well as Zicam or another zinc supplement.

What tips can you offer your fellow travelers to help them stay healthy this winter? What home remedies do you swear by?

If you’re an experienced RN, OT, PT, speech therapist, pharmacist, or other allied health professional with a yearning to travel to different healthcare facilities across the country for short-term assignments, contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing. We look forward to hearing from you.

It’s that time of year again, the time when many of us, with the best of intentions, draw up our list of New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, research has shown that the steadfast resolve we begin the year with seldom lasts more than a month or two, if not just a few days.

If you are a traveling healthcare professional, you also may be considering some resolutions. They may include professional development, volunteering more, losing weight, or networking more. Once you’ve decided on a resolution, you may be thinking, “Now what?” What exactly should you be doing to move toward that goal you have made? What should you be doing to increase your chances that you will achieve that New Year’s goal?

Here are few suggestions for getting where you want to go from Heidi Grant Halvorson, a motivational psychologist.

First, be as precise as possible. When you set a goal to lose weight, for example, you need to specify the exact number of pounds, not just simply set as your goal to “lose weight.”

Do it now. Take advantage of an opportunity to make steps toward your goal. When you have the time, make the effort to move toward your goal. Go to the gym, if getting in shape is your goal. But to do this, you need to decide beforehand exactly when and where you are going to take the step toward your goal. Monday and 2 o’clock, for example.

Keep tabs on your progress. How much have you accomplished so far, and how much further do you have left to go? If you don’t know how your progress is going, you can’t make adjustments if you need to.

Be prepared to work. When you start out, be confident about achieving your goal, but realize that it is going to take hard work and prepare yourself for it.

Think about getting better. You need to focus on taking small steps at improvement, because improvement will come. You can improve: Abilities can be acquired with practice.  You can change.

Be tough. You need to keep at it even when you encounter obstacles. You need to make a commitment to your long-term goals and stick with it. Not sure you have the toughness?  Again, persistence, planning and effort will go a long way to help you develop that toughness.

Build willpower by doing something every day that you would rather not do. Like anything else, you can build willpower through practice. Start with something small, and plan how you will tackle the difficulties when they occur. It will be hard at first, but as you work at it, it will become easier.

By the same token, don’t take on more than you can handle. Don’t try and do too much at once.

Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. You’re not going to break a bad habit by just stopping it. It will be much easier to break by replacing it with a good habit instead. So focus on what you are going to do to establish that good habit.

If one of your resolutions or goals in 2013 is to explore the wonderful world of the traveling OT, PT, RN, speech therapist, pharmacist or allied health professional, contact a recruiter at MedPro Healthcare Staffing. We look forward to discussing the many travel opportunities we have available.

An interesting read from one of our association partners – American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment (AAIHR). The article touches on a variety of topics relating to immigration issues regarding foreign-trained healthcare professionals. A snippet of the Executive Summary with a link to the full text are listed below.

The U.S. Congress and the executive branch have failed to establish immigration policies that would allow a
sufficient number of foreign-born doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to work in the United States. At a
time of tremendous need in health care, the United States is saddled with an immigration system designed to
prevent, not facilitate, the entry of highly skilled physicians, nurses, physical therapists and other foreign-born
medical personnel. The aging U.S. population, the demands of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the potential
benefits brought by medical advances and increased specialization mean America must tap the global talent pool
in health care or see its citizens suffer the consequences.

To read more, download the white paper here:

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/22488496/1275517538/name/NFAP_Policy_Brief.Health_Care_and_Immigration.November2012.pdf