The Atlas Life #43 - Lindsey Stewart, Traveling ICU RN

Jake Brower: Murphy has an Instagram account.

Lindsey Stewart: Murphy does have an Instagram.

Speaker 3: He does?

Jake Brower: Yeah. There's plenty of pictures.

Lindsey Stewart: But it's weird because I also have one, but most of my pictures are him.

Jake Brower: So, Murphy really has two.

Lindsey Stewart: Two, yeah. Hi, My name is Lindsey Stewart. I am ICU and I've been traveling for... it'll be three years in March.

Jake Brower: I first got connected with Lindsey through a friend of hers that was currently working. I think she was at Stanford at the time when I first talked to Anne, and Anne was actually one of the first nurses I ever spoke to on the phone. We were talking about this last night. It was back in September, October. She was on assignment in...

Lindsey Stewart: Boston.

Jake Brower: ... Boston when we first talked, and then she was headed out to Washington and got her first assignment through another agency and we kind of connected throughout that contract. When she was done, we did our first one together.

Lindsey Stewart: This is Murphy. This is my dog. He's six. Murphy Lee Stewart, if you will. His specialty is emotional support.

Jake Brower: And they are a package deal.

Lindsey Stewart: We are.

Jake Brower: Every time she's going somewhere, she's like, "We are going somewhere," and I'm always wondering if she has a friend going with her. It's always Murphy. Not that she doesn't have any friends that go places wither, murphy is always there. Most travelers hate talking on the phone. They say it all the time, "Don't text." Lindsey's like the opposite. She loves to communicate. She loves to talk. So, anytime there's something that we're trying to figure out, she's like, "Can we just talk on the phone because it will be so much easier?"

Lindsey Stewart: Yeah.

Jake Brower: And a lot of times it makes it a lot more simple to to communicate and know exactly what somebody wants when you can actually talk to them. So, in a world where nobody wants to talk anymore, Lindsey is the exception.

Lindsey Stewart: You're just so easy to work with and there's never been a point where I could be like, "These are the things that I want," and he would be like, "I can't do that." There's never been that point. I feel like I'm being a pain and he's always like, "No, you wanting to work in a bigger hospital is not a big deal, or you wanting to go to Seattle is kind of a big deal, but also at the same time we'll make it happen." It's not that he doesn't ever tell me no, but he's always like, "I'll work with you if you work with me." So, very, very easy to work with, which I really like.

Lindsey Stewart: I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and hadn't really explored, started as a nurse at age 25 and had moved to DC and I was like, "Okay, this is great." Was not living a lifestyle that was conducive to traveling. And so I started looking into it and starting to travel just because I wanted to explore, I wanted to get out there. I think after this week I'll have hit like, I want to say close to 40 of the 50 States. Yeah. That's thanks to traveling thanks to you guys.

Jake Brower: Lindsey is one of those nurses, like when I first saw her resume I was like, "This is going to be an easy one." She has a degree in neuroscience prior to even becoming a nurse. But I think the first thing you said to me is, "Do not put me on a neuro unit."

Lindsey Stewart: I started out in neuro, like a neuro med surgeon or ortho stroke unit, and it was good, but it's so sad. Just the first two travel contracts I took were neuro ICUs, neuro trauma ICU, and it's sad. Yeah. Bose you can fix people in the MICU and the SICU, but a lot of the time in the neuro ICU you can't. The best part is new experiences, going to facilities and learning different ways that things are done. The worst part is probably trying to find your clique or your group of people. That's pretty tough. But yeah. But, I mean, you can overcome that. It's what you make of it.

Lindsey Stewart: The experiences outside of, I guess, the travel nurse lifestyle or the travel nursing aspect is just being able to go and explore and do things. I'm taking off this month. Thank you, Atlas. I can do that. But so I'm taking off this month and I'm going home to Pennsylvania. I get to spend lots of time with my family, who I feel like I've been neglecting. Then we go to Arizona in January. So, Banner Heart, January 7th, so very excited. It's going to be a totally different climate from Seattle in the winter time and the summertime to Arizona now in the winter.

Jake Brower: Perfect time to go to Arizona.

Lindsey Stewart: Yeah. Really excited.

Jake Brower: Yeah.