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Episode 121

Episode 121: ICU Travel Nursing, Everything You Need To Know With Justin Allison From Lead Health

Jun 14, 2023

Cover Photo ICU Travel Nursing What You Need To Know

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ICU travel nursing gives you the opportunity to visit different places while providing quality healthcare services to those who need it. Aside from this, what more things can you expect from taking such a job? Joining Jenny Finnell is Justin Allison from Lead Health, who breaks down the benefits of becoming an ICU travel nurse. He discusses the required experience, certification, and connections for a person to fit perfectly in this role. Justin also talks about the typical rate and contract duration for an ICU travel nurse, giving you a glimpse into the life of a healthcare professional on the go.

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ICU Travel Nursing, Everything You Need To Know With Justin Allison From Lead Health

We have a special guest in this episode. Justin Allison, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I’m fired up to be here, Jenny, and grateful to get to chat with you again.

I’m excited to share Justin with you guys. I was on Justin’s podcast. I highly encourage you to check out the BTS show, Behind The Scrubs, if you don’t already in tune with that. It is a great podcast. There are a lot of travelers out there. What we’re going to talk about is ICU travel nursing and some background on Justin. He has been in healthcare staffing for many years and started as a recruiter.

He has worked his way up through every position in a leadership role, built multiple startups, and founded a company. He loves talking about gratitude, leadership, culture, media content, and disrupting the status quo of an outmoded industry such as healthcare and giving without expectations. I love your gratitude and attitude. You are very uplifting, insightful, and inspiring. Welcome to the show, Justin.

Thank you. I’m immediately humbled by that warm intro. Listening to that is fun. I appreciate all the kind words and am excited to be here and hopefully provide a little bit of value to your audience. You have a big audience. I’m excited to speak my truth and our truth, and that will either inspire someone, motivate them, or give them a little nugget of education that will help them and help their ability to thrive. Thank you so much.

If you don’t mind, share a little bit about what you do with travel nurses, your background, and how you help with staffing and things of that nature.

I’m growing and leading my company called Lead Health. We are a travel nurse agency. We are headquartered here in California. We are heavy on the West Coast, but we have a large nationwide presence. We are specialized. We work with RNs, travel nurses, and a lot of ICU nurses. That is a huge demographic within that space.

We all know this. ICU nurses were arguably the most in-demand throughout the severity of the pandemic. We are fired up to be able to support the clinician experience and all the providers that we get to work with on a day-to-day basis and positively impact patient care. We are not at the bedside like you are, but we do help from that process and support that process of providing patient care. Part of our just cause as an organization is to support our clinicians and positively impact the lives of those in need. Through the process of the travel nurse experience, we are able to do that.

For those of you reading, if you are looking for a great agency, check out Lead Health. They do fun things. They care about the community, you, and your experience. They do conferences such as a TravCON in September 2023.

TravCON is a great example of us. One of our core beliefs is giving without expectation. That is on full display at TravCON because why we are there is to give without expectation. An example of that is creating an experience for the clinicians that we interact with within our community. That is why a lot of agencies go to TravCON, but we are not there to acquire leads. We are not there to take. That is one of the things that we stand by.

We try to do our best to align our actions and behaviors with what we say we believe in. If we say we believe in this, are we aligning our actions and behavior with it? We try to do that as best as we can, but we make mistakes, we fail forward, and we are not perfect. It is a constant work in progress, but we love doing it.

What Type Of ICU Can A Nurse Travel In?

That shows self-reflection. Your company truly stands behind what it is out to do and achieve. I’m excited, and I would love to dive right into some of the good questions that I have in line for you. Most of our readers are ICU nurses or soon-to-be ICU nurses because they are in pursuit of CRNA. A lot of nurses are a little unsure themselves as far as starting to travel and what type of ICU they can travel in. They are a CVICU nurse. Can they travel as a different type of ICU nurse, or do they have to stick with CVICU?

If we pause on the pandemic experience from the last couple of years, where all the rules were off the table, throughout the pandemic, if you are a CVICU nurse, you could travel as a surgical ICU nurse, or you could take an assignment in any subspecialty of intensive care. In the normal world, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, which were largely on that side of it, the hospitals do want a CVICU nurse that has CVICU experience to take a travel assignment as a CVICU nurse.

Nurse anesthetist meeting with patient before surgery

ICU Travel Nursing: If you’re a CVIU nurse, during the pandemic, you could travel as a surgical ICU nurse or take an assignment in any subspecialty of intensive care. But in a post-pandemic world, the hospitals do want a CVICU nurse that has CVICU experience to take a travel assignment as a CVICU nurse.

To be more specific, it is challenging if you don’t have this specific type of ICU experience to take an assignment. If I’m a trauma ICU nurse and I don’t have any CVICU experience, it would be challenging for me to be considered for a CVICU assignment or vice versa from that standpoint. It doesn’t mean it is not possible, but how I would set the expectation in the normal world of the travel nurse experience is you do want to have this specific experience that you want to be considered for as a travel nurse.

I also want to reiterate something that is reinforced by this, at least in my own experience with mentoring nurses pursuing CRNA. Usually, if you have robust ICU experience prior to traveling, such as doing ECMO or CRRT, you are going to still be able to get the high acuity assignments when you do travel, versus if you do not have these experiences they typically don’t train travelers in these types of roles. Would you say that is probably true in your experience?

Yes, 100%. I was going to give a little more context behind why you can’t be considered if you don’t have that specific type of experience. As a travel nurse, the rules are different. What I mean by that is that the expectations are different. You know this, Jenny. You might get 1 or 2 days of orientation or four hours of orientation, depending on the hospital. You are immediately on the unit for bedside providing patient care.

If you don’t have that skill set or that experience, that is going to be problematic. You are setting yourself up for failure, the hospital, the unit, and the patient if you don’t, but that is more to why. It is because you are expected to be running full-speed, sprinting at times, once you are on assignment as a traveler. That is why that is the case more often than not.

The rules and expectations are different for a travel nurse. You need to move at full speed, even sprinting at certain times, once you are placed on a travel assignment. Share on X

There is a myth, because it can be true as far as travelers get bad assignments, but it depends a lot on what experience you come with. You can’t take any shortcuts when it comes to getting that valuable ICU experience prior to traveling because you are going to set yourself to be able to have better assignments if you have the experience prior to traveling. Could you have a nurse say, “I only want level one trauma assignments situation?”

To make sure I understand your question as far as if a nurse asks like, “I only want to take assignments at level one trauma centers,” yes, you can. There are a lot of level-one trauma centers that use travels. Looking here in California, some of the biggest users of travelers are level-one trauma centers. However, ones come to mind, and we don’t need to name-drop the hospital, but we can if we want. California was in dire straits throughout the pandemic and still is. They are a level one trauma center. It was difficult and hard.

As an ICU nurse, you were getting tripled the entire time, if not more. The assignments were mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting. Travelers would show up to these assignments. They thought that $9,000 or $10,000 a week was a golden ticket. They are like, “I don’t know that I can handle this.” The advice I would say for ICU nurses that want to be travelers is don’t get caught up in the money of an assignment. To be clear, it is not always the case that because it is the highest paying job means it is the worst assignment. However, that can often be the case. It is going to be more difficult.

Choosing The Right Travel Contract

What I would encourage any nurse, ICU nurse, and traveler is you deserve to take the highest paying assignment that is available to you, and focusing on that can positively impact you. The flexibility of working as a traveler is great. Being able to travel and have experiences outside of the bedside and the hospital is great. That is why nurses travel. It is a high-paying, flexible lifestyle.

What I would encourage you to do is to ask questions like, “What are the biggest challenges this facility is facing now? How is this going to play out?” The thing is that, oftentimes, the higher the pay, the harder the assignment is going to be. Make sure you are asking the questions so you know what you are getting into. When you show up on day one or week one, you are like, “I’m pumped. I’m making to make $8,000 a week,” not anymore. That was common throughout the pandemic. They are like, “I don’t want to work 60 hours a week. As an ICU nurse, I don’t want to be tripled or have four patients. Thank you, I can’t do this. I didn’t sign up for that.”

Ask those hard questions. Ask them to your recruiter. If they don’t know, they may not have all the answers then inquire through the interview process if you get the chance to talk to a real live person, which you don’t always get to now as part of the travel process, but that does still exist. I would ask those difficult questions. You can have clear expectations of what you are walking into so you are not surprised like, “I made a bad decision.” I’m curious. You have a little bit of experience with all this. What are your thoughts on that?

It is important to network and go to things like TravCON to connect with other travel nurses because that piece right there is getting a firsthand like, “You have had this assignment. You have worked here. Tell me about it.” You will get a candid answer from someone who has lived it versus someone trying to recruit you for a position. Even though I do agree you should ask the questions, you can’t go wrong by finding out from current staff what their experience is like. That is not always easy to do. You have to plug yourself into the community.

Even with my own experience now, I wouldn’t say I have travel nurse experience. I have locum CRNA experience. Before I did that position, I talked to several CRNAs who were working there. I learned the hard way through taking a job that I was not happy with, that I needed to ask more questions and interview them. When I’m getting an interview, I need to interview them to make sure it is a good fit. That is key. What has served me well in the last two positions I have had is I have to ask those hard questions.

I want to add to plugging into the community, which is what you are talking about. They are thankful because it is a new era in time. We are in 2023. The internet, Web 3.0, social media, podcasting, and all this stuff exists. There is an abundance of opportunities to connect with your community. Two specific things about what you are talking about are if you want to get some feedback from travelers on hospitals.

I’m friends with Lindsay and Jared, who have scrub stores. They do hospital reviews. You could look up specific hospital reviews or assignment reviews through their platform and app. MedVenture, those are Ryan and Emily. Those are my good friends over there. They are uniting the traveler community. If you want to get directly plugged into the traveler community, look no further than them.

It is not just for fun. There is a lot of fun event stuff, but it is the stuff you are talking about, like, “I’m new to this. What should I expect? I don’t know what questions to ask. I don’t know to ask about non-billable orientation hours. I don’t know to ask about what happens if I get canceled or sent home early. What does that mean? I don’t know what this term means in my contract.”

There is a large punchline. There is a large community out there. It is easier now to access that community and plug into them, educate yourself, and not feel isolated either while you are on assignment because, oftentimes, there are a lot of other travelers at that hospital that you don’t know that are feeling the same way you are feeling. You can connect with them through these different platforms.

That is vital and important for those. That is a big hindrance for people even taking that leap to travel because there are all those unknowns with contracts, pay, negotiations, and how you navigate that landscape. You can learn a lot from your peers and through plugging into communities like you guys and MedVenture who can help connect you with other travel nurses.

I would say one thing back to flexibility. I know this from all the years and feedback. One of the common threads that travel nurses that leads to a successful assignment or career as a travel nurse is flexibility. Hands down is one of the most common denominators. Feeling fulfilled and happy with your decision to work as a travel nurse or an ICU travel nurse is to be flexible because you have to understand the reason you as a travel nurse are going into a hospital is you are there to solve a problem. That hospital has a problem. It is called staffing.

They have holes in their schedule. They are hiring you through an agency or a gig platform because we are at that point in the game with these gig platforms. You are there to solve a problem, help fill holes in their schedule, and not contribute to that problem by asking for three weeks of time off throughout the assignment. Flexibility is important to have the best experience as a traveler.

Benefits Of Travel Nursing


What would you say when you hear nurses always say, “Why would they become travel nurses?” What are the benefits? What would push someone to become a travel nurse?

We have already touched on it a little bit, but hands down number one, it is autonomy. Money is the darling of the show because that is the shiny object. Nurses deserve to get paid and get paid boatloads of money for what they do, and all traveling healthcare clinicians and locums like yourself. That is the shiny object, but when it is all stripped away, it is autonomy. What I mean by autonomy, it is the flexibility we are talking about. It is the flexibility to choose, “When I am working? Where I am working? Who I am working with?”

You get to choose, “Do I want to take a thirteen-week contract and take a month off between assignments?” Absolutely. Can you do that as a staff nurse? Of course not. You can request time off two years in advance, and it is likely to get denied. It is autonomy over your time and your tasks where you are working, when you are working, and who you are working with. You might be on an 8-week or a 13-week contract. When that assignment is over, you are like, “This was a toxic environment, toxic culture, bad leadership,” whatever the case may be, or you didn’t like living in the location. You don’t have to extend. You can go on to the next place. You get to choose who you are working with. That is it hands down. It is the autonomy, and it is the high-paying, flexible lifestyle.

The other benefit is you are back to level one trauma. You get to work in hospitals that can potentially be career builders. You get exposed to an environment. You learn, grow, and get new experiences as a clinician. You are getting professional development that you wouldn’t get otherwise if you stayed at your same local hospital for several years. That is a huge thing.

Being an ICU travel nurse exposes you to different environments where you acquire professional development you wouldn’t get by staying at the same local hospital. Share on X

Many of the travelers in the community want to travel and ditch all those things for the true travel experience. It was like, “I’m working my 3 or 4 shifts. On my 3 or 4 days off, I want to go explore the environment.” There is a huge element for the outdoor community and the travel nurse experience, but that is a huge draw to it.

It is one of the benefits of being a travel nurse. You still get a lot of the same perks as being employed because if you are working for an agency, you are an employee. Every traveler that works for Lead is a W-2 employee. They get benefits, retirement, and all those things that you would get at a normal full-time staff job. You are not missing out on any of that stuff either. I can keep going on this but feel free to stop me.

No, you sold me. I like to do it.

There are many benefits, but here is the kicker. It is different for everybody. A lot of what we are talking about now is common. However, it is still different. You need to ask yourself why. If I was a travel nurse and why I want to travel, it is going to be different than why you Jenny as a locum traveler, CRNA, why you want to travel. It is not going to be exactly the same. It is not a one-size-fits-all. It is a choose-your-own-adventure opportunity. You need to look inward and ask yourself why first. Why do you want to travel? How do those intrinsic motivators align with what the travel nurse experience offers and the benefits, as you asked?

Where you are in your life depends a lot on it. If you start having a family, and especially if your kids are in school, you can’t move them all over the country with you. You are like, “That means I have to be away all the time.” Traveling is a little bit more doable or achievable if you don’t have a young family or if you have older kids who are doing their own thing, and I’m going to do my own thing. I have seen it go both ways where I see younger nurses do it. I see older nurses do it whose kids are in college or out of the house. All of those are great benefits.

How Much Money Can I Make As A Travel Nurse?

I want to get to that golden question. What is the going established rate for ICU travel nurses? Do you know that off the top of your head? I caught you off guard.

It still varies, but you are looking for anywhere from the $2,000 to $4,000 range. That is a broad range, but that is a week for ICU. Here is the thing to give some more context on that. At the peak of the pandemic, the rates were insanely high. In pre-pandemic, they were low. I will give you an example. People will like this because they are always like, “What are bill rates? They are hiding this information.”

At the peak of the pandemic, the average bill rate was in the $180s to $190s per hour for a bill rate. Now, pre-pandemic, a good average bill rate might have been between $80 and $85. If you got a $100 bill rate, you would be like, “This is crazy. This must be some L&D nurse.” That was the golden ticket for bill rates back pre-pandemic.

To give this a timestamp, and this is May of 2023, the average bill rates sit dead smack in the middle of that as it is now. They have come down considerably over the last several months-ish from where they were at the height. I’m talking average. There are some bill rates that are like, “I never thought I would see a bill rate that low ever again post-pandemic.” There are still rates that are high. The average rate is right about dead smack in the middle of where it was at peak pandemic and pre-pandemic.

A nurse putting on gloves

ICU Travel Nursing: The average rate for a travel nurse is about dead smack in the middle of where it was peak and pre-pandemic.

When you say bill rate, you mean what the hospital pays per hour. It is not what the nurses take home. That is what hospitals are willing to pay. As a staffing agency, you need to be able to run your business. You take a portion of that. What the nurses take home is what is left.

I love this. This is a great opportunity because this is one of the biggest things. They are a huge blind spot. The bill rate is what we bill a hospital. It is what they pay us for filling the job. A huge part of that is what we pay the clinician. These are the hourly wages and bonuses. One thing that is not well known is we have to pay payroll taxes for that. It is a significant percentage. We have to pay the housing or housing stipend out of that. We have to pay for the meals and incidentals out of that. There are stipends, professional liability insurance, and workers’ comp. There are a lot of things that go into it.

What is left over is what we take as a gross margin. It is not like I get a $200 bill rate, but we pay the nurse $100. They are like, “That agency is pocketing $100.” No, there are all these things that are taken out of it. What is left over is a small percentage. I can speak for us. I know what the status quo averages of that percentage are. We, as a company, are way below that because it is part of our belief. We want to give more than we take. That is factored into that. It is not like, “Here is a bill. Pay a nurse and keep the rest.” It doesn’t work that way.

I understand that everyone wants to get a piece of that pie when it comes to the government and all of the payroll taxes. As a business owner and we have employees now, I was like, “You pay payroll tax?” No wonder people want contractors because they pay their own payroll tax that comes out of their salary, but they charge as independent contractors. It is significant and does add up. There is always the workman’s comp.

There are a lot of other benefits. That is not cheap. Thank you for painting that realistic picture that agencies are not out there getting half of what the nurses make or double. If nurses are making $60,000, they are making $60,000. That is not the case. $2,000 to $4,000 a week is the going rate now. Remember that number when you are seeking ICU positions as a travel nurse. You talked about how nurses can assign longer than twelve weeks. You even mentioned eight weeks.

Thirteen weeks is the golden standard. There are shorter and longer assignments. The most general shorter length is the eight-week contract. That is not a small percentage. I don’t have the numbers in front of me to tell you what percentage of our current open jobs are eight weeks. It is probably sub 10%. Our majority is thirteen. We do get longer contracts, 16 to 20 weeks, sometimes six months. That is more common in your world of six-month assignments and contracts.

What often happens is extensions. Extensions are common. You could sign up for a thirteen-week assignment as an ICU travel nurse, and you could end up extending for another thirteen weeks after that. It is common that nurses will stay at one location for 2, 3, to 4 assignments up to that here mark before they have to go out of the area to reset their travel status. The lengths vary, but thirteen weeks is common, and extensions are also very common.

A nurse wheeling a newborn baby in a hospital carrier down the hallways

ICU Travel Nursing: Extensions are very common in travel nursing. You could sign up on a 13-week assignment then end up extending for another 13 weeks after that.

For you guys reading, when you find that unicorn unit that you love and jive with it, the experience is great. Stay around if you can because that’s how you get the managers to write your references for CRNA school. That is how you get the harder assignments and more experience. Keep in mind that you are looking for that one place where you can stay put, especially if you are in pursuit of CRNA. You need a longer-standing relationship with nurse managers to get those reference letters. That is a great goal to have. A question I have seen pop up in Facebook groups, especially a lot during the pandemic and probably more towards the end of it, is can they change your pay in the middle of a contract? Does that happen?

I’m empathetic. Yes, they can. That does happen, and that sucks. One thing I will say to that is it goes both ways. During the pandemic, there were oftentimes rates going up during an assignment. It is natural for us to focus on the negative bias of it. It was like, “It is going down. That is negatively impacting me.”

A lot throughout the pandemic, it was the other way around. Rates were going up. We are giving travelers more money. When the hospital raised their rates, we would give them more money. When they lower them, then we do have to make adjustments. It is not always. I’m speaking for what we did. If it weren’t significant, we would eat that cost. If we could avoid it, we don’t want to negatively impact our nurses, but that is not always the case, and that does happen.

That is not in your control. The hospitals are the ones calling that shot.

We push back, advocate, and sometimes win, but more often, we lose. That is a losing battle, but we fight it out if we can.

Thank you for clarifying that. You mentioned travel nurses receive housing accommodations. What is the typical stipend amount if you have a ballpark figure for that, or is it there?

I will explain the GSA. The GSA website is a site anyone can access. Every traveler can go to it. They put a public website where you can see how it works for both the housing, which they refer to it as lodging, verbatim. There is lodging, stipend per diem allowance which is for housing, meals, and incidental. There are two of them. It is regulated by the government per county throughout each state. There are set rates that are based on the cost of living.

If you look at the San Francisco Bay Area, the cost of living is insanely high. They have the highest per diem rates in the country because of it. If you go to Fresno, the cost of living is much lower than in the Bay Area. The per diem rates are going to be less because the cost of living is less. That is how that works. There is going to be a broad spectrum. The rates are going to vary. Usually, if you are adding them together, the two housing plus meals and accidentals, you should be wearing the $1,000 to $1,200 a week range per diem. To be clear, it all depends on the location and the county you are working in.

Is this on top of the $2,000 to $4,000 a week?

No, that is included. That is a good question because that is how rates and pay packages are quoted. I would ask, like what you asked there. If you are new to travel nursing, the questions you want to ask are like, “You quoted me $3,700. Is that my hourly rate or my hourly rate plus my stipends? How does that break down?” You are typically online. When you see jobs, if you are on a marketplace or website, it will show a weekly gross. Sometimes it will have the breakdown of that. When you talk to your recruiter, or you are interested in a job, you apply for a job and have them break down the compensation.

Don’t assume that what is online is going to be 100% accurate to your deed because you may not need benefits. Have them rerun that comp. Requote it for you specifically once you get in contact with them, and have them break it down so you know what to expect because nothing more frustrating for travelers is to think that they are getting paid a certain amount and they get their first paycheck. They are like, “What is this? This is not what I agreed to.” It is usually because their recruiter or agency didn’t educate them or break down the ins and outs of the pay package.

Thank you so much. That would be like, “This is not what I thought I was going to get.” For travelers, do you need any certain certifications? If you had extra certifications, would it open more opportunities for travel positions? Does that not tend to matter so much?

It will make you more marketable. The more certifications you have that are relevant to your area of expertise or that show advanced learning and advanced education in your specialty, 100% will make you more marketable, which is a good thing because it is competitive in travel nursing; a hospital could get 32 nurses for one opening and those certifications give yourself that no-matter-how-small little edge on your profile. That can help you stand out amongst the crowd. Now is it a guarantee? No, of course not, but it can help make you more marketable. I would encourage whoever if they have that skills or certifications, whatever it may be, to do it, but not necessary.

LeadHealth.com

Thank you so much. To wrap this all up, I’m grateful for your time. How do nurses find jobs in Lead Health? Do you guys have a website they can visit to seek opportunities you have?

Our website is LeadHealth.com. We have our jobs up there. You can get them. However, we released our app. It is called Lucy by Lead. It is the iOS store and Android store as of this moment in time. The primary function as of now for our app, Lucy by Lead, is for job searching and being able to find jobs in real-time, curating them to what you are looking for, and setting up customized filters, searches, and alerts. Those would be the best two routes. Our website and our app, Lucy by Lead, is the best place to find our jobs.

Thank you for sharing that. I hope you guys that are reading are excited about travel nursing. I have mentored over 5,000 ICU nurses pursuing CRNA. The bulk of them have made so much money for CRNA school by traveling. I say, “Get it while you can and take advantage.” If you want to travel and get those experiences, I’m like, “I’m reliving the days where I wish I would have done something like this.”

Maybe, at some point in my life, I will when the kids are like, “Mommy, I don’t need you anymore because why not?” You only have one life to live. This sounds fun and getting plugged into the community. Lead Health is a great company to get plugged into. Take advantage of a company that cares about the nurses they staff. Thank you so much, Justin, for coming to the show. It was an honor to have you.

It was all my pleasure. Thank you. I want to leave with this last little nugget, the satisfaction of the travel nurse experience. I was in NATO. One of the presenters shared a bunch of data. One thing specifically is if you are considering travel nursing as a career or locums as a CRNA, 85% of travel nurses have stated that they intend to continue to work as a traveling healthcare nurse. There is high job satisfaction. Eighty-five percent expect to continue as a travel nurse. On the flip side, we have all heard this at one point, but 30% of staff RNs are planning on leaving bedside care. It is not as high job satisfaction as a staff nurse, but there seems to be a high percentage within the travel nurse experience.

Around 85% of travel nurses intend to continue traveling because of its high job satisfaction. Share on X

A couple of things that are driving that is, “What is it that I should be looking for as far as to ensure that I am getting high satisfaction in the travel nursing career and the agency experience?” The number one thing is communication with the traveler and the agency. Some of the key takeaways as to why they are satisfied is that their agency is quick to respond to their calls.

People still want to talk on the phone in this digital world, but they are quick to respond to their calls and inquiries. The agency keeps them regularly informed, especially about things that could impact them, and they are acting as their advocate. Those three things are something I would encourage people to be thinking about that leads to that satisfaction as a traveler. It is a good career if that is the path for you.

I want to add my own experience, and I’m dated because I was an RN back in 2009 and 2010, but I remember my paychecks. I got paid every two weeks and take-home after benefits, everything, was $1,500 every two weeks. That was $3,000 a month. To paint a picture, especially for those of you who are in nursing school, I was making $22 or $23 an hour and $24 when I left. The ICU to grad school rate is $30 an hour-ish, depending on where you work. Some types are higher than that. You are still looking at $4,000 a month for takeaway income.

This is $2,000 to $4,000 a week. Put that in perspective. I don’t want to go back to the pandemic. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the pandemic, but everyone wishes the prices would go back. We are still in a good place for nurses to substantially increase their earnings by being a traveler to save for CRNA school.

I can’t stress that enough because it is a three-year journey. That is expensive. You will thank yourself later when you get out of grad school. You have less to pay off and more time to enjoy some free time. Thank you so much, Justin. This was an honor to have the show. I love everything you shared. I know our audience is going to love it too.

Thank you so much, Jenny. I appreciate it. It was an absolute pleasure and unlimited gratitude for you in everything you are doing.

Thank you so much.

 

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About Justin Allison

CRNA 121 | ICU Travel Nursing

I have been in the healthcare staffing game for 20 years, started as a recruiter and worked my way up through every position and leadership role, built multiple start ups, founded a company etc. I love talking about gratitude, leadership, culture, media / content, disrupting the status quo of an outmoded industry, and giving without expectations.

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Book a mock interview, personal statement critique, resume review and more at https://www.TeachRN.com

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Hello@CRNASchoolPrepAcademy.com

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