Florence Nightingale is the inspiration for the 2015 Gypsy Florence Nightingale Contest.

National Nurses Week runs each year from May 6-12 — ending on iconic nurse Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Nightingale, often referred to as the mother of modern nursing, remains a huge inspiration to nurses everywhere.

This year The Gypsy Nurse is hosting the Third Annual “Gypsy Florence Nightingale” Contest, in celebration of Nurses Week and Florence Nightingale’s birthday. The prize is valued at more than $600.

“As a Travel Nurse, we have met and interacted with many nurses across the U.S. We all have at least one fellow travel nurse that has inspired us, aided us, or has represented Travel Nursing in a way that makes us want to be a better nurse,” she writes on her website.

Click here to make your nomination for the 2015 Gypsy Florence Nightingale contest!

The 2014 Travelers Conference is coming this September!

September 23-24 are going to be the dates for the 2014 Travelers Conference!

The annual conference will once again be held at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, located on the Las Vegas strip. The 2014 Travelers Conference is hosted by PanTravelers, and according to its website, it has grown into the largest single gathering of healthcare travelers in the U.S.

“Organized by volunteers who are themselves current or former travelers, the purpose of this event is to provide a relaxed setting that gives travelers an opportunity to network with other travelers and top industry insiders,” reads the Travelers Conference site.

You can still nab the early registration discounted price of $89 (for both days) prior to August 1st. Standard registration is $99, from August 1st-September 1st. And, if the event is not yet sold out (as it was last year by this time) the last minute registration fee is $115. PanTravelers contributing members are entitled to a 15% discount on the cost of conference registration.

This year there will also be a Newbie Boot Camp, Monday, September 22, from 1-5 p.m. This will allow new travelers the chance to learn from experienced travelers and staff. It is completely free, with your paid 2014 Travelers Conference registration.

As of this posting, the 2013 information was still posted under schedule and speakers — to give an idea of what attendees can expect. But, there is information about the 2014 Welcome Receptions and Gypsy Nurse Luncheon, and the full roster and schedule will be posted as they develop.

Click here to learn more about the 2014 Travelers Conference. If you have any further questions, you can contact the organizers through that link.

Have you ever been to a Travelers Conference in the past, and, do you plan to attend the 2014 Travelers Conference? Let us know in the comments.

Travel Nurses Go For The Gold Every Day!

The 2014 Olympics in Sochi are coming to a close this weekend. Maybe if you’re lucky enough to have worked the evening or night shift you got to catch some of my personal favorite winter sport, Curling — which was on at exclusively odd hours this time around!

Seems so many of us have the Olympics on the brain, and I just came across a great blog this week on allnurses.com called Nurses Train Like Olympians. The posts’ intro reads:

“Before an athlete can enter into the Olympic ring, they must do years of extensive training. The same is true for nurses. They take rigorous prerequisites, nursing courses and clinicals, before they can enter the nursing field. Nurses train to go into many environments. Just like [sic] Olympians take their talents to the slopes, nurses train to take their skills and knowledge into many different arenas. For both there are tears, laughter, joy and few hours of sleep. But they know in the end it will all be worth it because they are following their dream!”

I thought this blog made some really fantastic comparisons. The post goes on to compare nurses and Olympians in terms of:

• Physical Strength
• Mental Toughness
• Uniforms
• Nursing Also Having Fans
• Ability to Keep an Eye on a Goal

Agreed, on all counts! But, it got me thinking about how travel nurses specifically are like Olympians. Here are a couple more I’d add that are specific to travel nurses and how travel nurses are like Olympians:

Performing Like a Champ on an Unfamiliar “Course”

There was some talk this year about difficulty of certain courses in Sochi. Shaun White may have lost some fans over his inability to deal with a tricky course. On the other hand, American Kelly Clark called the halfpipe course “challenging” but told USA Today, “I know I can’t control what the pipe conditions are. It has the potential to be variable, and I’m going to make the most of this opportunity.”

Clark’s sentiments are pretty much what every good travel nurse must believe when jumping into things at a new facility. Travel nurses can’t control or know what the dynamic will be like, but they jump right in and make the most of it.

Sense of Adventure

Watching terrifically talented athletes conquer adventurous courses and dominate the landscape in all the way across the globe totally reminded me Olympians travel for adventure and to succeed in their fields — just like travel nurses.

I hope you enjoy the conclusion of the Sochi Olympics, and that all you travel nurse Olympians keep going for the gold every day on the job!

Oh, the questions nurses get used to hearing!

Talk about a travel assignment: Visiting Bruno Mars in his dressing room to check up on his sore throat. Sounds like a dream assignment, actually. But for one nurse who found herself in this spot recently, she got more then she bargained for when Mars appeared to be a little cuckoo and asked her all kinds of strange questions. Among the strange questions, he asked her to take off her shoes and also why the Pringles can was shaped the way it is! You can check out the video below.

Luckily for this particular nurse, the whole thing turned out to be a prank put on by Bruno Mars and Ellen DeGeneres. But how many crazy questions do you routinely hear on the job that don’t actually turn out to be pranks? Oh, the questions nurses get used to hearing!

Mighty Nurse published a great blog this week called 10 Questions All Nurses Have Learned to Answer.

Some of the questions included:

“So, are you going on to become a doctor?”

“My light has been on for hours! Where have you BEEN?!”

“What’s with the long wait times around here?”

“Have you done this before?”

“Hey, could I call you after I leave here?”

“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever had happen to you here?”

Also, I’d like to share that when I was visiting the Mighty Nurse site I noticed that they had a poll called “How is the staffing at your facility?” At the time I viewed the results, 86% said “understaffed,” 2% said “overstaffed,” and 12% said “correctly staffed.” These results just go to show there is a massive and ever-growing need for travel nurses!

So, back to questions … What questions do you hear all time? And what’s the weirdest thing a patient has ever asked you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

One thing’s for sure: As traveling nurses, you definitely get to sample different kinds of patients from all across the U.S.

If you are working over Thanksgiving this year, being thankful for your job as a travel nurse may not be right at the tip of your tongue. But it’s an attitude of gratitude that will carry you through and will also rub off positivity on your patients and everyone else you meet. It may sound a little PollyAnna-ish, but you know it’s true. So let’s look over a few reasons that should make travel nurses give thanks over this Holiday weekend.

Travel nursing allows you to make a major positive impact.

This impact stretches from the patient in 1143 to his or her family, the hospital, and ultimately the overall healthcare system. You should be thankful that you work in a profession that really allows you to roll your scrub sleeves up and make a difference in people’s lives. As a dedicated nurse you know that even in a tragic situation your bedside manner and support can offer comfort that makes a lasting impact on a patient and often an entire family. As a travel nurse, you go where you are most needed, thus helping the entire healthcare system work more smoothly.

Working as a travel nurse lets you spend Thanksgiving in a potentially exotic locale.

Maybe you’re in Hawaii! Or maybe it’s more like Fargo this year. Wherever you are this year, be sure to give thanks for the amazing opportunity you have to take the chance to see the world. You get to spend the holiday in a new city every year if you want. Make sure to be thankful for all the amazing sights, sounds, local cultures, and more that you have seen and that you have to look forward to seeing through your career as a travel nurse.

And it’s a pretty good living at that!

In these uncertain economic times, it’s pretty great that you are able to do what you love and make a really great wage doing it. Not everybody can say they have such flexible, interesting, and lucrative work as travel nurses do.

You’ve got your health.

You may spend a lot of time in the hospital, but at least it’s not for the reasons your patients are there. You are close enough to know how truly devastating a major health issue can be for a patient and their family. It’s good to take a moment to step back and thank your lucky stars that you are not on the receiving end of the patient care. Being thankful for something we can so easily take for granted — such as good health — is what gratitude is all about.

Of course there are so many more than three reason that travel nurses give thanks for what they do. What are you thankful for this holiday season? Share your gratitude in the comments.