The Atlas Life

The Atlas Life #55 - Traveling Duo Alyce Ni & Ryan Gundrum

Meet Alyce Ni, a Neuro ICU travel nurse, and Ryan Gundrum, a Cardiac ICU travel nurse. The traveling duo have wanted to see the country their whole lives, and now finally get the chance! Learn more about them in today's episode of The Atlas Life.

Justin Pietig: I met Alison and Ryan on the worldwide web on Facebook. They were looking for an Atlas recruiter and I said that I could help them.

Justin Pietig: It's super easy. They are low maintenance and they just kind of, when they need me they let me know. And they're actually pretty funny. They give me a lot of crap and I do the same with them. So it's been a lot of fun working with them. I got to meet them in Las Vegas, they came to Travel Con and got to know him in person and they're a lot of fun. I wouldn't have thought it, but they are really into rap music. And so for the party bus going to Vegas, Ryan plugged in his phone and was playing this hip hop music and kind of got the party going on that bus. So that was pretty cool.

Ryan Gundrum: My name's Ryan. I've been traveling since September 2017, so over a year and a half of traveling experience now. And my specialty, I would say is cardiac ICU. It's probably my favorite type of nursing.

Alyce Ni: And my name's Alyce. My specialty is neuro trauma ICU and I've also been traveling for over a year and a half now. When we started looking at traveling, we looked at different companies. We saw some awesome people, they would mention how good Atlas was so we just posted a post on Facebook saying, "Hey, if there's any Atlas recruiters that want some business, hit us up." And then Justin messaged us and got us connected. And you've been with Justin ever since.

Ryan Gundrum: And it's kind of like a funny story because we were also talking to Pete at the same time and he was making jokes saying how much Justin sucked. And we were like, "Oh really?" And he's like, "No, he's actually like one of my best friends." So I was like, "Oh God, thanks."

Alyce Ni: I think for me, I didn't do that much traveling when I was growing up, my parents were always working. And then once I got to college I was like, "Oh gosh," like, "There's so many places I want to go see." And so actually one of my friends I remember when I was in college, she was like, "You'd be perfect to do travel nursing." So once I graduated, I did my over two years on a unit and then I started traveling.

Ryan Gundrum: For me, I've always liked to travel. Like her, I never got to do too much of it when I was younger so now this is a great opportunity to explore this country. And then another thing was I was just wanting to try something different other than cardiac. And this is a very open opportunity to try all sorts of nursing as well as to see how things are run in different parts of the country. Like, there's different ratios. What are the staff like, how the doctors do things.

Alyce Ni: The best part about this is obviously we love going to new areas too. When we first started out, he went to Fargo, which not... I wouldn't say that's my number one place I wanted to go to, but just he heard how traveler friendly it was so I figured Fargo was a great spot just to kind of get our feet wet. So then once we finished there, we actually headed to Reno. I love the location of Reno because it's so close to California. I love national parks so it's close to all the national parks in California. I love the travel aspect of it and seeing and doing things that I've never done before.

Ryan Gundrum: And another great thing about it is meeting different people. Like she said, Fargo is not your destined location here.

Alyce Ni: But we made some great friends.

Ryan Gundrum: Yeah, a lot of friends there that made the town really cool. I'd say for me it would be like finally getting to take care of really sick patients after I've been telling the hospital this is what I do. And then a light bulb clicks and that's all I can get for the rest of the month that I'm there, which is pretty nice.

Alyce Ni: It's cool when the doctors and the nurses, they trust your judgment and they are like, "Oh, okay. She's been doing this for a while." Like, "She knows what she's talking about." And so it's nice having other people come to you for guidance and then helping them and just showing them what you know and just kind of working together with different types of people.

Alyce Ni: We already secured our next contract, so we're going to DC. It doesn't have to be a contract, but I really want to get back out West and do a contract in Wyoming or Montana, just the rugged wilderness over there in that country. Just, I'm really interested in going over there.

Ryan Gundrum: More like Hawaii or Alaska for me, polar opposites.

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