The Atlas Life #52 - Travel Critical Care RN Kohlton Rhoda

Misti Loughran: I'm Misti Loughran, a recruiter here with Atlas Med staff. I've been working with Kohlton for approximately two years. Kohlton started as a referral from one of my other travel nurses who was working at Reno in Marino. We connected and started talking, and she took her first assignment with Atlas in March of 2017 in St. Louis, Missouri. Kohlton's been a nurse for almost six years and has traveled for about four of those six. So she got her friend Kristin talked into hitting the road with her and they met up in St. Louis, Missouri for their first assignment together.

Misti Loughran: Kohlton has just this amazing bubbly personality and you just fall in love with her immediately. And so last May, a group of us went out to Reno and we got to meet in person, spent a couple of different outings together, and you can just see immediately why people fall in love with her. She is super outgoing, friendly, bubbly, confident, all of those things. So to be able to get to spend some time with her personally was amazing.

Kohlton Rhoda: My name is Kohlton Rhoda. My specialty is critical care. I have been a nurse for almost six years and I have been a travel nurse on and off for the past four years. This friend had been trying to get me to switch to Atlas for like a year and I was trying to stick with my other company, and they just kept hounding me about it and I finally did. And I'm so happy I did.

Kohlton Rhoda: When I first started it was honestly being very impulsive decision, so I honestly did not know what to expect. I guess my first couple companies weren't as good. I guess they weren't as personable as Misti has been, so I didn't have the best... It wasn't a bad relationship, but it didn't feel like they cared quite as much. And with Misti it's like she's always so on the ball, she's always so responsive and that is awesome. Also she sends me gifts on my birthday and stuff, so that's always nice.

Kohlton Rhoda: I was just kind of stuck in a rut at my first nursing job and just really, really needed a change of scenery. I started traveling and just haven't looked back from that. I've been going around for over four years. I ended up staying in Colorado for like two years because I loved it so much, but then caught the travel bug again so here I am.

Kohlton Rhoda: I think the best parts are obviously you get to see new places every three months, if you want to make it that often. If you get stuck in a job you don't like, you can just switch in three months. You make the best friends ever. I have made so many great lifelong friendships through travel nursing and now I have friends all over the U.S., so that's amazing.

Kohlton Rhoda: Things that I didn't expect that took a while to get used to, I think just figuring out how to get rid of all of your crap and be able to fit everything in your car, because this is my life now, I don't have a home base. And then just the finding the housing every three months can sometimes be a challenge, but it always works out so it's never that big of a deal.

Kohlton Rhoda: I think one of the hardest things is when you're working in new hospitals every three months, you really, really have to be adaptable and you have to be able to get along with any sort of personality because you're coming in as an outsider every three months and so you just have to be able to adapt and fit in with the rest of the crew there. It takes a lot of open mindedness and flexibility on our part, I think.

Kohlton Rhoda: I'm going to keep traveling, hopefully for the next couple of years at least. I actually just enrolled in a nurse practitioner program, started it last month, luckily it's 100% online so I get to travel for at least the next two and a half years before I start clinical so that's awesome. That's my plan.

Kohlton Rhoda: I have had my Washington and my California licenses for over a year, so those are definitely two on my list that I need to hit up soon.