Travel ICU RN, John Farnsworth (No Ordinary Path) - The Atlas Life #80

Natasha Sage:       Such an adventure too, you know, for your kids getting to see everything this country has to offer. You know, like you said, not in a short vacation time like okay, we have three days, you know, then we have to pack up and leave. You get to take advantage of where you are.

John Farnsworth:    Yeah.

John Farnsworth:    We, I mean travel nursing is awesome cause you're in an area for three months at a time and that's really cool because it really does afford you time to get to know the area.

Natasha Sage:       So one of our recruiters at Atlas, she transitioned into a client manager, and so when they transitioned, then all of their nurses are dispersed to recruiters that they think personality-wise would be a good fit. And so I luckily got John and the Farnsworth family, and we've done two travel assignments so far together and hopefully many more.

John Farnsworth:    I initially was just kind of asking around with other nurses that were traveling and saying, "Hey, you know, what are some of the best agencies that you've ever worked for?" And Atlas just kept coming up, just kept coming up. And yeah, the rest is just kind of history, and it's been awesome so far.

John Farnsworth:    Part of it is, you know, adventure. I wanted to show the kids, and you know, my wife, all the country has to offer. So traveling kind of allows me to do that in such a manner that this just feels like one big vacation.

John Farnsworth:    Yeah. I go to work, you know, too. But you know, we get to see these amazing places and go all over. And then also just because I wanted the adventure too. We lived in Colorado for a while and moved back to Kansas briefly and kind of missed some of the adventure that we have. And so we thought, you know, let's maybe look into getting an RV. And we went and looked at it, and she was like, wow, this is amazing. And I said, you know, I could travel nurse.

Natasha Sage:       Yeah.

John Farnsworth:    And then from there, that's when it really got started.

John Farnsworth:    With a family, there's some challenges in terms of housing and how that works. A lot of people really think that you can't do travel nursing with a family and we don't like to kind of, you can't do it. So yeah, we can.

Natasha Sage:       Such an adventure too, you know, for your kids getting to see everything this country has to offer, you know, and like you said, not in a short vacation time like okay we have three days, you know, then we have to pack up and leave. You get to take advantage of where you're at.

John Farnsworth:    Yeah. I mean we, travel nursing is awesome cause you're in an area for three months at a time and that's really cool because it really does afford you time to get to know the area. I think you have to learn to kind of accept the fact that you have to prove yourself every time to the new staff, the new unit. I find that most places it usually takes two to three weeks before they trust you. I work in ICU, so critical care, I find myself taking the sick, sick patients later in the contract than in the beginning because you kind of have to show, you know that...

Natasha Sage:       Sure.

John Farnsworth:    ...I am confident. I know what I'm doing and that kind of stuff.

Natasha Sage:       Then they're always like, "Can he just stay perm here?" Every reference said, "We always asked him, you know, if they decide to move here, that he can work here at this facility."

Natasha Sage:       So...

John Farnsworth:    I think one of the hardest things for me to learn was, and it is going to get deep here, was kind of how to deal with death because that's not really something that can teach you in nursing school. They can teach you critical thinking, they can teach you all the skills, you know, how to start IVs and medicine and all that kind of stuff. But some of the thing is you know how to deal with people that are passing and what that means. And I think that was, that took a little time to kind of get used to, but it, you know, it does come with time. It's not something, you know, you can just get right away. It does come with time. And I think that was, that was difficult at first.

Natasha Sage:       With John and Kristin and their family, you know, I've gotten to know them, things that they love, what they look for out of their assignments. So I think that helps my job, and since we have that connection with knowing their family and always seeing their YouTube channels, I know, "Oh this would be an awesome area. There's national parks around." So I'd say it's pretty awesome.

John Farnsworth:    We're very outdoorsy, and Tasha does a fantastic job of knowing that and really helping place us. I mean, you know, we'll maybe say like a general area of the country we would like to go to and then she'll send me back things like, "Oh yeah, there's this and this and this and this to go see while you're there."

Natasha Sage:       Yeah.

John Farnsworth:    And I think that's just awesome. I really love that about the relationship that we have.

John Farnsworth:    For my family, I think we're going to continue to travel for a while. These are the states that we have been through with travel nursing, and it's just, it's been really fun. And you know, we've got a few to fill in now as well, but there's still a lot of the country that we haven't seen. And so part of that is filling in these states and going to these different places and eventually we'll settle down. We know we're not going to do this forever with the kids because that is part of the challenge of living in the RV and traveling in general. I don't know what's next.

Natasha Sage:       Yeah.

John Farnsworth:    Got to get a job.

Natasha Sage:       Yes. I got to get to work. We got to cut this short.

Natasha Sage:       Yeah.

Speaker 3:          Maybe a recruiter!

John Farnsworth:    Who knows. Yeah. Who knows. Maybe I'll come to work for Atlas someday.

Natasha Sage:       Yeah, there we go.

John Farnsworth:    It's a great company to work for it looks like.

Natasha Sage:       Yeah.