As you have probably heard, there are some cons to traveling healthcare or as I like to call them, barriers to entry. As with all barriers to entry, there are often ways to remedy these or better explain these barriers to increase ones understanding or decrease their fear.
I hear many fears from other healthcare professionals who are thinking about traveling, and often times these fears tend to be more of a misunderstanding than a fact about traveling healthcare. Don’t get me wrong, there are some cons or work requirements that don’t appeal to everyone, but if it was all easy, everyone would do it.
- Finding Short Term Housing
I get asked on every assignment I take, where and how I found furnished housing for the short term. This can be one of the biggest headaches to traveling healthcare, but if you know how to approach it and make the appropriate plans this headache can often be avoided.
I break down several ways to find short term housing while traveling in a separate post:
Where to Find Short Term Housing
- No Vacation, Holiday, or Sick Pay
This is definitely one of the cons to traveling, but it also tends to be one of the most misunderstood.
I break down how to navigate this pay in a separate post:
Vacation, Holiday, and Sick Pay as a Traveler
- Getting Adjusted to a New Location, Staff, and Patients
This can be difficult and it definitively takes someone who is flexible and can roll with a new situation. But it really is not as scary as it sounds. I am by no means outgoing and I have managed to do just fine.
See how I did it in my post:
Getting Adjusted to a New Job, Staff, Location and Patient Population
- Transitioning to your Next Assignment
This might be my personal least favorite thing about traveling healthcare. Just at the point when you finally get settled at your new assignment, 4-6 weeks in. It’s time to start working on finding your nest assignment.
But with the right right guidance, and some tips, you can definitely increase the speed ad efficiency with which you complete this process.
Find out how:
How to Quickly and Efficiently Transition Between Assignments
- Poor Benefits
I often hear people not wanting to travel because they need benefits or that they can’t travel because they want to be able to save for retirement using a 401k. While traveling has all of these benefits covered, plus some other unique benefits that few people know about.
I wrote a separate post on these benefits:
- No Career Growth
Although true in some regards, if we look at traveling through a different lens, it sometimes can offer more career growth than what first meets the eye.
Check it out:
My Career Will Never Advance as a Traveler
Conclusion
Yes there are cons to traveling. It is hard to be away from your friends and family. This work isn’t for everyone. But some of the common cons or excuses that people use to convince themselves to not travel are often not as true as others have made it seem.
Before you completely disregard traveling, make sure you actually are exploring the reasons/barriers for why you don’t want to look into it. Because the benefits and the experience might be once in a lifetime.
What are some of the other cons that you have heard or experienced with traveling healthcare?
If you have any specific questions, or want to learn more about what companies I recommend, feel free to message me here.
