After eight months of staying in California, it’s time for the well-deserved break from travel nursing. Today were are travel nurses podcasting in nature. Join us as we spend time away from the hustle and bustle of work and life.
No matter how busy our life gets, we should always spend time with nature. There’s nothing better than fresh air and clear skies. Besides, what better way to relax than being with your surroundings?
Being travel nurses, we are privileged to take mini-vacations in between contracts. To start our break, we took a little RV trip for two weeks exploring the Pacific West to reconnect with ourselves and keep grounded amidst all the chaos in reality and the internet.
Why is camping or hiking beneficial to you? Not only is it an adventure, but it can also make you happy and teach you lessons you can’t learn in a classroom setting. It improves your immune system as you get lots of sun exposure. It also teaches you resilience, be resourceful, and be patient.
We strongly recommend taking these mini nature trips to take some time away and experience calmness once in a while. Not just for nurses but for anyone who has been working so hard to strengthen their mental health.
While reconnecting with nature, we prepared this episode to show you how peaceful and relaxing it is to reconnect, camping, and podcasting in the wilderness. Follow our trip by watching our vlogs on Youtube to inspire your next getaway.
There’s more to nature. Find out about it by watching the full episode here 👇
TIME STAMPS:
0:00 – Intro 0:33 – We took an RV trip 1:53 – Why We Took a Break from Travel Nursing 2:50 – The Beauty of Travel Nursing 3:00 – Nature Allows Us to Disconnect from Our Chaotic Lives 5:00 – We Can Function Without Our Phones 7:10 – You and the Elements 8:25 – Take a Mini Trip 9:10 – Learn about Nature 11:55 – Synchronization 15:00 – An Eye-Opener 20:10 – Conforming to Society and the Opinion of Others 22:00 – The Polish Way 25:33 – Lessons from Our Experiences 26:10 – Understanding Yourself 29:50 – Wrapping up
In this episode, we are going to talk about The World Economic Forum, or in short WEF. In summary, The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. This is a non-profit organization that joins public and private companies in collaboration with certain agreed-upon goals.
The WEF’s mission is stated as “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.
The World Economic Forum hosts an annual meeting at the end of January in Davos in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together 3,000 business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities, and journalists for up to five days to discuss global issues, across 500 sessions.
The organization also convenes six to eight regional meetings each year in locations across Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and India and holds two other annual meetings in China and the United Arab Emirates.
Besides meetings, the organization provides a platform for leaders from all stakeholder groups from around the world – business, government, and civil society – to collaborate on multiple projects and initiatives. It also produces a series of reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives [1].
Who is in Attendance
Donald Trump, President of the United States of America
Han Zheng, Vice-Premier of the People’s Republic of China
Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of Germany
Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy
H.R.H. The Prince of Wales;
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
Pedro Sanchez, Prime Minister of Spain
Simonetta Sommaruga, President of the Swiss Confederation
Andrzej Duda, President of Poland
Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Roberto Azevêdo, Director-General, World Trade Organization (WTO)
Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, Secretary-General, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
David Beasley, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Luca Visentini, General Secretary, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
Micah White, Co-Creator, Occupy Wall Street
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
Greta Thunberg, Swedish climate activist
Deepika Padukone, Actress, and Founder, Live Love Laugh Foundation
will.i.am, Founder and CEO, I.AM.PLUS
Jin Xing, Choreographer, and Founder, Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai
Yo-Yo Ma, Cellist and Co-Chair Annual Meeting 2020
Mary Beard, Professor, University of Cambridge
Rena Efendi, Photographer, National Geographic
Wanuri Kahiu, Filmmaker, AFROBUBBLEGUM.
2020 Global Risk Assessment
Top Likelihood of Occurring
Extreme weather
Climate action failure
Natural disaster
Biodiversity loss
Human-made Environmental disasters
Data fraud or theft
Cyberattacks
Water crises
Global governance failure
Climate-related issues dominated all of the top-five long-term risks in terms of likelihood.
A new cold war is developing as countries—including China, Norway, Russia, and the United States— compete for fish, gas, and other natural resources; for the use of new shipping lanes; and to establish a strategic footprint in the region.
Russia and China have prioritized developing the Northern Sea Route, with the latter dubbing its initiative the “Polar Silk Road”. The U.S. Department of Defense released its Arctic strategy in July; that document did not mention climate change but did present a strategy in which the “end-state for the Arctic is a secure and stable region in which U.S. national security interests are safeguarded.”
More Complex Digital Frontiers
One such area is artificial intelligence (AI). According to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, it will take “massive interdisciplinary collaboration” to unlock AI’s potential. But because AI can also bring significant risk, multilateral cooperation is needed to address challenges such as security, verification, “deep fake” videos, mass surveillance, and advanced weaponry.
Despite the need for a common set of global protocols, AI has become a new frontier for competitive geopolitics. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”
China has strongly encouraged companies to invest in AI, making it a national security priority; AI is a pillar of its current five-year plan (2016–2020) for science and technology development and its “made in China 2025” industrial plan.
In the United States, the Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center recently requested that its budget be tripled to US$268 million, citing the rapid development of AI capabilities by China and Russia as a reason for urgency.
2030 Predictions for the World
What will the future look like for the world? This is probably the question in everyone’s mind. Here are some of the future predictions that may happen in the next few years [2].
Products will become a service
There are people that do not own a car, don’t own a house, don’t own appliances or clothes, they don’t own anything.
Global price on carbon
China took the lead in 2017 with a market for trading the right to emit a tonne of CO2, setting the world on a path towards a single carbon price and a powerful incentive to ditch fossil fuels, predicts Jane Burston, Head of Climate and Environment at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory. Europe, meanwhile, found itself at the center of the trade-in of cheap, efficient solar panels, as prices for renewables fell sharply.
Drop-in US dominance into a handful of powers
Instead of a single force, a handful of countries – the U.S., Russia, China, Germany, India, and Japan chief among them – show semi-imperial tendencies. However, at the same time, the role of the state is threatened by trends including the rise of cities and the spread of online identities.
Less hospital care
The hospital as we know it will be changed, with fewer accidents due to self-driving cars and an increase in preventive and personalized medicine. Open organ surgeries and organ donors are out, and tiny robotic tubes and bio-printed organs are going to be developed.
Less meat
Rather like our grandparents, the meat will be a treat rather than a staple, writes Tim Benton, Professor of Population Ecology at the University of Leeds, UK. It won’t be big agriculture or little artisan producers that win, but rather a combination of the two, with convenience food redesigned to be healthier and less harmful to the environment.
Refugees will be CEOs and share the future
Highly educated Syrian refugees will be old enough to have an impact on the community by 2030, making the case for the economic integration of those who have been forced to flee the conflict. The world needs to be better prepared for populations on the move, writes Lorna Solis, Founder, and CEO of the NGO Blue Rose Compass, as climate change will have displaced 1 billion people.
Western values will be tested
We forget the checks and balances that bolster our democracies at our peril, writes Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.
Moving closer to Mars
What’s more, once we get there, we’ll probably discover evidence of alien life, writes Ellen Stofan, Chief Scientist at NASA. Big science will help us to answer big questions about life on earth, as well as open up practical applications for space technology.
COVID-19: The Great Reset
The book has three main chapters, offering a panoramic overview of the future landscape.
The first make an assessment of what the impact of the pandemic will be on five key macro-categories: the economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental, and technological factors.
The second considers the effects in micro terms, on specific industries and companies.
The third hypothesis is about the nature of the possible consequences at the individual level.
“This is a chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts, to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change,” Trudeau said.
Simply put, will we put into motion the Great Reset? Resetting is an ambitious task, perhaps too ambitious, but we have no choice but to try our utmost to achieve it.
It’s about making the world less divisive, less polluting, less destructive, more inclusive, more equitable, and fairer than we left it in the pre-pandemic era. Doing nothing, or too little, is to sleepwalk towards ever-more social inequality, economic imbalances, injustice, and environmental degradation.
Failing to act would equate to letting our world become meaner, more divided, more dangerous, more selfish, and simply unbearable for large segments of the globe’s population. To do nothing is not a viable option.
Two points are pertinent to the Great Reset in this:
Our human actions and reactions are not rooted in statistical data but are determined instead by emotions and sentiments – narratives drive our behavior.
As our human condition improves, our standards of living increase and so do our expectations for a better and fairer life.
Klauss belief: Transhumanism is a philosophical movement, the proponents of which advocate and predict the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies able to greatly enhance longevity, mood, and cognitive abilities.
Learn more about the World Economic Forum by clicking on the full episode here
TIME STAMPS:
0:00 – Intro 0:10 – Episode Intro 1:50 – A globalized world 2:00 – WEF Mission 3:35 – The Annual Meeting 4:50 – 2020 Risk Assessment 8:50 – Products will become a service 13:42 – Less hospital care 17:15 – Less meat consumption 19:52 – Refugees will be CEOs 20:00 – Western values will be tested 27:05 – Moving closer to Mars 29:29 – The Covid-19 the Great Reset 31:40 – China’s AI 33:20 – Can robots replace us? 34:50 – “Emotion is more powerful than logic or numbers” 37:00 – The two points of the Great Reset 39:30 – Context matters 41:00 – A world that’s less decisive 41:50 – Enhancing the human condition 42:35 – Peace out!
Being a nurse has its ups and downs and perhaps we’ve seen it all. But what about the grossest parts of nursing?
In this episode, we are going to be discussing some of the nastiest and grossest about nursing that we have to deal with.
Every nurse has that one gross story to share. When it comes to patients, we’ve seen it all from vomit, poop, skin, blood, and so much more.
The Respiratory Secretions
Respiratory secretions are the nastiest to me out of all of them. But there definitely is something satisfying from properly suctioning a patient and seeing their work of breathing change.
Secretions come in all sorts of colors green, brown, yellow, and red. They also come in all kinds of textures, thick, thin, or frothy. Nurse, Techs, Resp. Therapists and Physicians all suck them out.
Oral Care
You can tell when someone hasn’t gotten oral care done in a while. It happens in-house and out.
You will be surprised by what you will find in a patient’s mouth when doing oral care, especially among older patients.
Vomit
Vomit and peg/ng outputs are bad as well. When a patient is about to vomit, nurses are usually the ones running for a basin, and you’re lucky if you catch it in time.
You’re either catching vomit or cleaning it off your patient.
Vomit has many different characteristics. Vomit comes in all different colors, green-yellow, brown, and red. It can be coffee ground, thick, watery, and it always smells.
Unfortunately, every so often, you see a nurse get a baptism by vomit or from a g tube.
Elderly Genitalia
Vaginas, peniss’, and buttholes, nurses see it all. Never in my younger years would have I predicted the number of genitals I’d be seeing.
Yes, you go into nursing understanding that there will be genitals, just not all the time. Nurses see patients naked all the time, to the point where it almost becomes a no big deal.
The glamour of our sexual reproductive organs fades over time, especially if you have an overweight patient.
Genitalia is also prone to not being taken care of, especially if they are contracted or have been getting full care for a long time. It’s sad to see but also one of the grossest.
Wounds
Nurses see a lot of different wounds. We like to say the bloodier, the better, but that usually refers to traumas that come in.
The grossest wounds are the unstageable pressure ulcers that have been forming on someone’s coccyx for the last three months.
Tunneling and undermining is a unique process where the breakdown extends under the skin to the fat and muscle tissue.
A bad case of tunneling leads to an increased risk for infection but also gives off a nasty odor, drainage, and color.
Poop/Fecal matter
We saved the code browns for the end. Nurses see so much poop we have a chart memorized. We call it the bristol stool chart, where if you have 3 number 7s in a shift, you might have c diff.
Every nurse will have a giant poop story. If you haven’t, then it’s building, and your day will come.
Nurses all have that day where the poop is so overwhelming that it literally drips off the bead and even on your shoe. Or that time when your patient stood up, and that triggered a cascade of unfortunate events.
Want more yuckies? Click here for the full episode! 👇🤪
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro 00:20 Recalling our podcast episodes 02:05 The Gross Parts of Nursing 02:44 Respiratory secretions 08:02 Clean your patient’s mouth 08:10 Vomit 12:14 Elderly Genitalia 16:20 Wounds 23:29 Poop 25:24 “He pooped in my hand.” 29:10 Recap of the show 29:30 End of show
EP 110: Pros and Cons of Day Shift and Night Shift
Both shifts have pros and cons. The day shift is better for the body clock, whereas, the night shift brings financial rewards and a slower pace work environment so you learn the career.
Depending on where you are with the life you may choose one over the other and change shifts in the future based on your family’s needs.
Quality of Sleep
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, and how sleep gets the effects of different shifts.
Researchers from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States analyzed data from 883 subjects to investigate the relationship between night shift work and sleep quality.
Sleep quality was found to be low among night shift workers. The sleep quality was positively correlated with HbA1c, total cholesterol, and triglyceride levels and inversely correlated with DHEA levels.
It was highly correlated with inflammatory markers and inversely correlated with antioxidant markers.
The conclusion of quality of life and sleep is that working nights disrupt your circadian rhythm, causing negative changes in metabolic, inflammatory, neuroendocrine, and antioxidant markers.
Quality of sleep is also a factor because when you work days, there is no worrying that the neighbor’s dog or the lawnmower might wake you up during the night.
Working nights, you also have to cycle your sleep. After working three shifts in a row, should I sleep 4 hours, wake up, run some errands and then go to sleep early to “reset”.
Shift Work Sleep Disorder (SWSD)
Shift Work Sleep Disorder (SWSD) is referred to as an avoidable, chronic, long-term health condition.
Symptoms:
Difficulty concentrating and headaches
Irritability leads to stress and issues within personal and professional relationships
Lack of energy, drive, and decreased productivity
Insomnia or the inability to fall asleep when you need to
Inability to make quick decisions leading to safety concerns
Noise & Pace
Depending on the facility, the day shift can be rather intense compared to the night [1]. There are generally more meds and procedures during the day.
Days can be noisy with constant new faces rounding on your patient and the constant influx of new orders, so your pace on days will always change.
During day shifts, meals are distributed to patients’ rooms three times a day, and you need to cover Accu check and tailor it to your patient’s ability to do activities of daily living.
Working night shifts, we feel like you can gauge how your shifts will play out. If you are a new graduate nurse, working nights gives you time to think.
The quieter environment and slower pace of the night shift can allow for more time to think, plan, and sort out one’s life.
While the day shift offers opportunities to be mentored, working the night shift is slower, and nurses and doctors are able to discuss cases together.
During the day, there is so much happening that often. They’re just handling the most important patient care tasks.
No matter what hospital we have traveled to, teamwork was always great, but night shifts seem to have a stronger bond.
You don’t have as many resources at night, so you have more opportunities to interact with your fellow nurses, creating stronger relationships.
During the day shift, you have more opportunities to connect with patients and their families. That relationship-building can be important, and only the day nurse has the chance to truly do that work.
Learning vs Autonomy
When it comes down to learning the medical field, working days have more opportunities. With surgeons, physicians, nurse practitioners, and clinical nurse specialists roaming the halls, you tend to have more conversations, and asking great questions can really help a nurse to gain and sharpen clinical knowledge.
Days have more learning opportunities, but working nights has greater autonomy, and experience is a great teacher. Working nights, you tend to rely less on doctors and try to troubleshoot situations.
Who wants to wake up the doctor at 3 am? Not me, so we tend to use up all resources and get creative with nursing before we make that call.
Salary Potential
Night shift salary and differentials can be significantly higher than days, and the extra earnings can really add up.
That extra four or five dollars an hour really adds up after 1,872 hours a year working as a nurse (3 12s). Some nurses have a hard time giving up nights for this reason alone [2].
Patient and Families
This is a double-edged sword because it can be mentally taxing to interact with patients’ families, but it also can be the most rewarding experience.
Families and visitors can often make your shift much more difficult. It all depends on the personality that you have. Do you love interacting with families?
If you’re trying to get grounded in nursing, working night shifts is the better choice because, during these times, visiting hours are usually over by 9 PM.
Working nights means less connection with patients who are often asleep most of the night, and you have fewer opportunities to connect, talk, educate, and form a nurse-patient bond.
Your Family and Personal Time
Peter and I don’t have any kids, but we talked to many nurses, and most say working nights is easier for their families and kids.
If you work from 7 am to 7 pm, you need to leave the house before the kids are barely awake. You miss the opportunity to be present for preparing for their school day.
You also don’t get off of work until well after they get home, so you miss out on after-school time as well.
With personal time, we think both shifts are created equal. Some nurses working nights claim they need a whole day to recharge, whereas we pick up where we left off in our personal life.
If you are a person that cherishes routines and a regular schedule, days are better.
Day Shift or Night Shift? Which ones do you prefer? Click on the full episode here 👇👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro 00:17 Update on our lives and the Frontline Warriors website 03:42 Today’s Episode: Pros and Cons of Day Shift and Night Shift 04:12 The Sleep 07:42 The Shift Work Sleep Disorder 09:58 Noise and Pace of the Environment 13:50 Team building 16:16 Learning vs. Autonomy 21:40 Salary Potential 24:16 Patients and Families 28:30 Family and Personal Time 33:00 End of Show
What to do When Your Travel Nursing Contract Gets Cut Short
Travel nursing is a lucrative business, it pays well, and you can have a lot of fun. A typical travel nursing contract is anywhere from 8 to 13 weeks, with the option to extend after each contract. We are hearing a lot of nurses getting canceled mid-contract or even during their first shift. We’re going to provide some insight on how to make your cancelation a little bit more manageable.
Know how long you want to stay in one location
Don’t sign a long-term lease
Two-week grace period
Look for jobs before the contract expires
Be financially smart
Have profiles with multiple agencies
1. Know how long you want to stay in one location.
The most efficient and effective way to get the most out of a travel nursing contract run is to stay at a place for multiple contracts. Why? Because when you extend your contract, it is usually accompanied by a pay increase. Hospitals do this because you’ve already completed orientation, and it is more cost-effective to keep a nurse than train a new one.
Another reason is to know how long you want to stay so that your recruiter can keep looking for jobs in the area. If your recruiter knows you want to stay in a location longer, they will keep looking at contracts. This works out well when you do get canceled mid-assignment. It will be easier for you to find a job on shorter notice.
During your contract, let your recruiter and the manager know you want to extend your travel nursing contract once it’s up that way, they don’t have to look for a nurse that may fill a future position, and it may avoid you being cut because they know you are willing to commit longer.
2. Don’t sign a long-term lease.
One mistake that nurses make is signing a long-term lease. They go in thinking they’ll be in one location for a year. That isn’t always the case. If you want to be somewhere for a year, we’d recommend letting your recruiter know about the facility so they can potentially work on it with you. A facility might be able to keep renewing your contract but let them know ahead of time.
We don’t recommend signing such a long-term lease because things change quickly. You might be better off doing a 3-month lease and renewing it each time. You might not even like the facility or the location.
You can lose a lot of money by breaking the lease agreement, the money you could have even saved by signing short-term leases.
3. Make sure your contract has a 2-week grace period.
Look through your contract, and if it doesn’t have a clause stating that you’ll get a 2-week notice before your cut, make sure you get one. This way you at least have two weeks to find another job.
Some places don’t offer a 2-week notice, but I would still push for one because you never know what can happen. Getting cut short is stressful, and you need ample time to adjust.
4. Look for other jobs before your contract ends.
Your contract has an end date, have your recruiter start lining you up with jobs as soon as possible. This way, if you get cut, you already have something lined up, and they may even be able to take you on early.
It would be best if you always had a job lined up at least a month before your contract expires. That way, you aren’t chasing time and working yourself up about job security.
Travel nursing jobs have a specific start date, but that can be adjusted if you apply for jobs a month out and get cut two weeks early. The next facility might be able to hire you earlier.
5. Be financially savvy.
Just because you can afford a more excellent place because you have a more considerable income coming in doesn’t mean you should take it. Nursing is a stable career, but you should be prepared for the worst. Getting cut puts you in a financial hole, and it’s much harder to get out if you always live in luxury.
Make sure to have an emergency fund that covers at least one month of travel nursing expenses; this is different than your standard emergency fund, which should cover about three months worth of bills.
6. Work with multiple agencies.
Different agencies have different locations and contracts. Even if you enjoy working with 1, keep your foot in the door of others. Finding a temporary arrangement after you get canceled when you work with multiple agencies is much easier because you’ll have more offers.
It is common for nurses to find a home with one agency but don’t get stuck in that one forever because there will be times when you’ll have to reach out to others, and when you already have your paperwork filled out, it makes for a smoother process.
Here’s what you can do in case your travel nurse contract gets canceled. Click here 👇👇👇
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro 00:10 Today’s topic 01:17 As a travel nurse, you must adapt to things 02:43 Know how long you want to stay in a location 07:25 Don’t sign a long-term contract lease 10:08 Make sure you have a 2-week grace period in your contract 12:40 Look for other jobs before your contract ends 15:15 Be financially smart 19:26 Financial stress sucks 25:05 Work with multiple agencies 30:07 If you need us to help you 30:32 End of Show
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