post written by Dan Kashulines

You may have heard many things about the difficulties of starting a new travel nurse contract. First you have to complete all the endless onboarding and then find a place to live. After you’ve  finally arrived at the hospital it’s time to start working. Perhaps you’ve heard horror stories about getting terrible assignments right off the bat, or being left without help like a fish out of water. Starting out at a new job, especially with very minimal training, is an intimidating task. As a travel nurse, this is the expectation. I want to take some time to talk about what you can expect on your first day of the job.

You can also check out some of our other resources about starting and finding travel nurse contracts:

• Signing On With a Travel Nurse Agency
• Questions to Ask During Your Travel Nurse Contract Interview
• The Timeline of Starting Travel Nursing

first day of orientation

For starters, by the time you reach your first day, hopefully you’ve already been told what your schedule for your first week will look like. This isn’t always the case so you may be flying blind (like I was on my first contract). Either way, as a travel nurse you’re expected to be able to hit the ground running. The hospital expects that you have had enough experience that you can handle the job with very minimal orientation. That’s why they hired you.

a lot will depend on who is training you

A lot of your first day can vary depending on what nurse you’re paired with and what your own comfort level is. Some precepting nurses believe that they should throw you right to the wolves from the get-go, and just be there as a resource to help out should you need them. Other nurses think it’s important to have you shadow them first before you jump in, so you can get the lay of the land. There’s no exact way to predict that, but my advice is that you should advocate for yourself with the nurse precepting you. If you’re the kind of person that wants to jump right in, go for it. But if you would rather take a slower approach, then speak up. It never hurts to be your own advocate.

be a sponge and opt to shadow

My advice for your first day on orientation is to be as much of a sponge as you possibly can. Depending on the hospital and your prior experience, you may or may not have worked with the documentation system, which takes time to learn. But whether you’ve mastered their style of charting or not, virtually every unit I’ve worked on has had different policies and workflows. For this reason, I don’t recommend jumping right in without seeing that workflow at all.

On my first day of orientation I have frequently opted to take the shadowing approach. Since I’ve noticed that the workflow of the unit can be so diverse, depending on the hospital I’m working at, I like to see how the nurse that’s precepting me likes to organize their day. Usually what I try to do is stick with them for the beginning of the shift and then as the shift goes on I assume responsibility for some or all of the patients, depending on how comfortable I feel. This way I get to see how the staff nurses have learned to work efficiently on this particular unit, while also getting my own hands-on experience with the patients.

expect it to be hectic

Either way, whatever precepting style you choose, or whatever style your nurse chooses for you, you can expect your first day of orientation to be hectic. It’s a new place with new faces and new policies and procedures, and whatnot. I find it helpful to go into the day expecting this, and knowing that it will get better once you start to get the hang of things.

For your second day of orientation, I recommend taking care of all the patients by yourself as much as you are able. This will likely be your last day of orientation before you’re expected to be able to take care of all the patients on your own, so it’s best to make sure you can do that with very minimal help. Your precepting nurse will be there to answer questions and to help you out as needed, but you are expected to be able to handle this.

first day off orientation

Then comes the time when your orientation and training comes to an end. For me, this is always the most intimidating part of starting off at a new hospital and a new floor, because while I know the resources are there should I need them, it does feel that any sort of safety net has officially been removed. So for me, my expectation of the first day off orientation is that it will probably be one of the most hectic days. I can count on myself forgetting where certain supplies are, forgetting peoples names, forgetting where certain patient rooms are on the unit, etc… In other words, you’re gonna be busy.

have humility, you will need to ask for help

One major piece of advice I’d like to offer for this first day, and really, for the first few weeks is to have humility. Travel nurses we are expected to know a whole host of things and to be ready to handle the floor on our own almost immediately. We do know a lot, but nobody is perfect, and we will eventually find ourselves in situations where we don’t know the answer or don’t know how to proceed. My recommendation is to always ask questions. For me, this is what often makes the first day take longer, and seem more hectic than it may be otherwise. But I know it’s worth it to be able to provide the best care for my patients, and I think it also shows the other staff nurses that you’re serious about your job.

don’t neglect your nursing intuition

One last piece of advice I’d like to offer is not to neglect your nursing intuition. It can be intimidating questioning your charge nurse, questioning doctors, or just questioning leadership in general when something doesn’t sit right. This intimidation only escalates when you’re just starting out on a new unit and you don’t know anyone. But if ever something is not sitting right, you should always speak up, even if that’s on your very first day of orientation.

If I had to pick one word to sum up what to expect at the start of orientation and working on your own as a travel nurse, that word would be busy. I suppose in many ways that it’s just the nature of travel nursing in general; it makes life tumultuous and busy, but also an adventure. So be prepared to experience adventure, excitement, and anxiety as you jump into your first day as a travel nurse.

how did your first day go?