Highway Hypodermics

Logan Bruner

Question 1:

In a large metropolitan area, Nurse Floating Flo contracts to float between three hospitals within a 10 mile radius of her housing. Starting in the 6th week, the company ask her to float to a hospital 15 miles away, the 7th week she goes to one on the other side of the city, that is 30 miles away, plus one that is 17 miles away. The nurse is willing to take the first few, but after the behavior continues, she has had enough and voices this to her recruiter.

Answer 1:

This all comes down to what the nurse prefers or wants to do. Once I have the full understanding of situation I then ask for what solution would help him/her best. As soon as I have all this information I would then proceed to reach out to the hospital to see if we could work it out. I will always have the nurses best interest in mind, but also have to fill out the hospital side of the situation. This way I can at least let the nurse know that this could cost us the contract. In the meantime I would have no problem looking for something else for him/her; since it wasn’t known to the nurse before I would never hold him/her accountable for these changes.

Question 2:

Baby Nurse Betty is a skilled labor and delivery nurse, who also can float to post-pardum care after the delivery as well as the well-newborn nursery. At 7:30pm, the staffing company hotline gets a call stating that they want her to float to the NICU, which is beyond her competency level. What is your company’s response?

Answer 2:

If she does not feel comfortable in the NICU setting we wouldn’t want her in that area. This could cause her putting her license on the line and we all know how hard nurses work to get their license. If he/she was open to the facility training him/her in the NICU then I would leave that up to his/her discrection.

Question 3:

Nurse Roach is all excited about her first travel nursing assignment. She drives 750 miles to her new assignment housing. After getting the keys from management, she opens the door and three cockroaches scurry across the floor. After further investigation, she also finds a ring of mold in the shower. She can’t stand it and immediately texts you with pictures. How do you respond?

Answer 3:

Tell him/her we will get her a hotel for time being and find her new housing ASAP. I would never let anybody live in those conditions if it was under my control.

Question 4:

You have worked with Nurse Asthmatic for 3 years now and she has done a great job for you, when she takes an assignment in Southeast Colorado. She envisions magic mountains that reach to the sky, only to find that she has landed in wheat country. Not wanting to cause problems she continues to work and everything is fine, until harvest. She has an asthma attack, ends up in the hospital, and is told that she is going to miss at least 2 weeks of work related to asthma induced pneumonia. How do you work things out?

Answer 4:

When sending my nurses to certain locations I always try to give them an idea of what the scenery is around them if they don’t know. I tell them to look up the area just to make sure this would be a place they could see themselves. However if it were to happen I would talk with the hospital to let them know what has happened and see if we could get her out of the contract early so further complications do not occur.

Question 5:

You have worked hard to find Nurse Roulette a job in Las Vegas. You send the nurse a contract that she readily accepts, signs, and sends back. The next morning the bags are packed and Nurse Roulette is on the way to the assignment of her dreams. At 0800 she is out the door and to the hospital. Checking in with HR, they inform her that there is no contract between the hospital and the company, related to the fact that it has not been approved by HR. About the same time, the recruiting manager comes to you and tells you not to send Nurse Roulette on the assignment. This shouldn’t have happened, but unfortunately it does happen. What do you do?

Answer 5:

Tell her to head to the hotel until we can figure out what is going on, mean while I will be looking for a new assignment around that area just in case (always have to have a back up plan). Once we figure out what is going on with facility I would then call her to make her aware of the situation.

Question 6:

What would you like travel nurses to know about being a great traveling nurse and making your job easier?

Answer 6:

Honesty and Communication! As long as we have that then we can get through 99% of situations. I am always upfront honest and straight to the point. If you cant trust your recruiter and or nurse then it probably is not going to work out..

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