The Atlas Life #39 - Tyler Bradford, Traveling CVICU Nurse

Braden Boex: How Tyler and I met is probably one of my favorite how I met a traveler stories. I reached out to him one day, and he texted me back. He was like, "Hey, I'm actually driving to my first assignment right now." "Well, if you're driving, where are you at now?" He was like, "Dude, I'm like an hour outside of Kansas City. We were going to stop in either Kansas City or Omaha for the night." I'm in Omaha, so I told him, "Hey, stop in Kansas City for the night. Here's all my favorite barbecue joints. Pick one of those, you're going to be happy, and then in the morning you got to get gas, got to take a break. Three hours away, Omaha. Stop in Omaha and let me take you to breakfast."

Braden Boex: He's got this really positive aspect, a view of life and traveling and kind of all these opportunities that he had. I connected with him like literally as ... It was like two stars crossing. I got to meet Tyler face to face a day after I first contacted him and talked to him on the phone.

Braden Boex: Tyler's just such a cool guy. We talk about sports. I send him local beers. I just find if he and I didn't have this recruiter/traveler relationship, I would still want to be friends with this guy. We could just hang out and just watch TV or do whatever. I think he would just be a cool guy to hang out with. I really like that he and I have what I personally feel like is a friendship that also happens to be a recruiter/traveler relationship.

Braden Boex: Tyler's birthday was this last Saturday, on the 10th. I don't know when this is airing, but Tyler, happy birthday, bud.

Tyler Bradford: I'm Tyler Bradford. I'm from Birmingham, Alabama. Been out on my first travel contract in Tacoma, Washington, and then going with Atlas here, they had a couple months starting in January in Modesto, California.

Tyler Bradford: Primarily I do intensive care with some history in cardiac intensive care. I probably heard from 8, 10, 12 different recruiters, seven or eight different companies, and like two days into my drive out here from Alabama to Washington, I got a text from Braden, who I've never heard from before, and I was like, okay, this is kind of weird or whatever, but I happened to be driving through Omaha, so he invited me to stop and meet some of you guys over at Atlas. That really kind of sold me some there, because I saw how close knit and small the company was compared to what I'd been dealing with. That definitely made ... I didn't feel pressured, so that really led me to want to consider you guys more for sure.

Tyler Bradford: Life's a lot different back home. Nursing I'm learning's a lot different back home. No unions, some of the worst pay in the country. Always, always, always short-staffed. A lot of different things, where I was like I've always wanted to do it. I'm out of excuses. Hey, now's the time. So, here I am.

Tyler Bradford: It's been different than I thought. I haven't been as homesick per se as I thought. It's the little subtle differences you never would have thought about, like none of the grocery stores are the same. You have a flat tire and have to get something fixed. Running errands, doing laundry, just those little things that you never would have thought about that are just completely different.

Tyler Bradford: I love sports, and I've never lived right in the vicinity of a lot of pro sports. I think I've been to, no joke, 13 or 14 sporting events in three months, like some of the WNBA championship, I was there, gone to a Seahawks game, a bunch of Sounders games. I'm not much to sit around. Visited Portland, visited Vancouver.

Tyler Bradford: Definitely the toughest and hardest part's the first two or three weeks. Yeah, it's really rough about the first two weeks trying to get to know everybody. It didn't take near as long as I thought to kind of get accustomed to what's going on. I mean, most of the medicines, most the illnesses, all that's the same, so you're really just learning the facilities and the doctors, and you just ask a lot of questions. Most people, here at least, have been very helpful.

Tyler Bradford: It seemed real big and scary, but at the end of the day it's still nursing, and it's still kind of the same thing. But my biggest advice is just be super flexible, because you don't necessarily know where you're going to be or exactly what your shift's going to be. It's all worked out. It's all worked out very well.

Tyler Bradford: Doing the Northern Cali thing, definitely want to do the Southern Cali thing. My brother lived in San Diego for a bit and I didn't get to visit, but I've heard it's awesome down there, so that's on my list. Hawaii or maybe Alaska or both at some point. I want to travel for a minimum of a couple years and really soak it up while I can.

Tyler Bradford: From working for a huge hospital and company back home to then using a travel company that's huge, this is my first experience with kind of a smaller company, and so far it seems to be pretty awesome. I actually feel like somebody gives a crap.