The Atlas Life #64 - Travel Nurse Med/ Surg Tele, Casonya Jefferson

Tara: Hi, I'm Tara. I'm recruiter with Atlas, and this episode of Atlas Life is going to feature that beautiful Casonya Jefferson. Casonya has been a nurse of mine for well over a year now. She's just blessed. I've actually been able to meet her in person at an Atlas meet-and-greet, her and her husband. She's delightful in person as she is through our last year together.

Tara: So she was actually an inherited nurse. Our recruiter here went to... did a different career direction, and I was handed Casonya. I didn't know enough about the contract or her, even successfully executed, so our first few months together were a challenge. A little challenging for her, but we again, we've worked together for a year, and she is up front. She's very honest. She's very easy. She communicates well. She's just been a gift.

Casonya J.: Oh, my name is Casonya Jefferson. My specialty is med/surg/tele. I do orthopedic, urology, oncology, trauma. I'm currently working at [inaudible 00:01:24] Medical Center in Modesto, California. Started traveling. I pretty much wanting to see what the rest of the world was doing, see their resources, to different types of patients, different types of sicknesses and diseases, and the different type of healthcare systems they use.

Casonya J.: I've never dreamed of becoming a travel nurse. Pretty much, I was in my job. I had been there for 14 and a half years, and then so many travel nurses was coming through. I was like, that seems like an interesting thing to do. Every three months you can choose a different hospital and be the new kid on the block everywhere you go.

Casonya J.: I would probably say it's found in housing. You're not really for sure what the area is, so you have to rely on other nurses that have been in the hospital there and rely on the website. Joining the networks with other nurses that travel was always a good thing, so you can get a feel of how safe the environment is that you going to be living in.

Casonya J.: I would say, well, the bad part about it is that every hello has a goodbye. You meet some awesome people, and then you have to say goodbye. One of the best experiences I've had is probably meeting people and making a difference.

Casonya J.: I have had a patient when I worked in Texas, she has so many allergies, so we were just going through a whole list of things, whether she changed her detergent, whether she changed her sheets, whether she changed shampoo. Just going through everything.

Casonya J.: She thought she was going crazy. The other staff thought she was pretty much crazy because she kept coming in. She hadn't used allergy sheets, and then I sat with her, and we talked for an hour. We're going through everything, and we pinpointed what it was. Her allergies came from her cat. She hadn't changed anything, and all of the symptoms started when she got a cat.

Casonya J.: Well, the most difficult thing I had to learn, I had gotten used to the people that I had worked with 14 and a half years. So it was a team, it was a family. Then my thing is like, okay, now, I'm going to be the new kid on the block. Am I going to have that family? Am I going to have that support, or is it now going to be a team of me? If something happens, something goes wrong, are they going to come help me. If there's a code, are they just going to leave me high and dry? So that was the biggest fear.

Casonya J.: I've been fortunate that I have worked at some pretty good hospitals, some good support teams. Pretty much when something happened, it's like they all right there running like it's their patient too.

Casonya J.: Where I'm going next. I will say back to California. They're pretty much still holding me hostage here. I'm pretty much extended again, so I'll be back at DMC. They don't want me to leave. They get sad every time I tell them my contract is ending.

Casonya J.: I want to say one of my dream contracts would probably be somewhere near the beach. I mean like right on the beach. Probably going somewhere like Hawaii, would be great. Somewhere Caribbean, tropical would be great. To watch the sun rise and set every day.