Traveling CST, Haleigh Cave - The Atlas Life #78

Corey Anderson:     My name is Corey Anderson and I'm a recruiter here at Atlas MedStaff. I was recently introduced to Haleigh via a former recruiter here at Atlas that took a different role within the company and luckily enough, I'm going to get a chance to work with Haleigh on her next assignment. She will be heading to Thermopolis, Wyoming. She's very familiar with that area and she's super excited about it. I'm looking forward to it as well. I haven't had a chance to work with a ton of surgical techs over the years, but we do definitely staff them and so this will be fun for me as well. Working with Haleigh so far has been great. She is a local Nebraska girl and comes from a smaller town like myself, so we seem to have clicked in that regards, so I think it'd be a good working relationship.

Haleigh Cave:       I'm Haleigh Cave, and I am a certified traveling/tech for Atlas MedStaff. I have been traveling for two years. I decided to travel as a tech pretty much from when I was in school three years ago. Our instructor talked about how she really wished that she would have traveled as a tech when she was not teaching, and so I worked for a little over a year and then I started traveling and haven't looked back since. The best part of traveling is getting to see different parts of the country. My favorite part is only having to spend 13 weeks at a time at a hospital in case you don't like it there, then you aren't there very long, but then you also get the potential to stay there longer if you do enjoy the facility that you're at.

Haleigh Cave:       Sometimes it can be hard to bigger facilities to get in with people and everything and make friends. I've traveled to a lot of smaller communities, which I like a lot more. I'm still friends with people that I met on my first travel contract two years ago. So one of the things that I've learned from going to facility to facility is basically to just jump right in and if I haven't done something, I'll usually just tell the doctor out right like, "I've never done this before, so just be sure to let me know what you want." So basically just being upfront with what you know and what you don't know and usually they're really good at being able to teach you new things. I've learned a lot of new things in the different facilities I've been to. My next assignment is in Thermopolis, Wyoming at Hot Springs County hospital. I am familiar with the area. I spent a year in Wyoming, one contract in Warren land, which was half hour away from there, and then two contracts in Douglas, which is down by Casper.

Haleigh Cave:       So I'm excited to spend more time in Wyoming, spend the winter there maybe. I don't know how excited I am for a Wyoming winter, but I'll be delivering a lot of babies, so we'll see how that goes. My advice to other techs or first-time travelers is just go out and see the place that you're at. Don't be afraid to make friends and to hang out with people that you work with. My first contract was in New Jersey and I drove the 22 hours to get there and I almost turned around and went back home, and I'm glad I didn't because it was a great experience and I loved it there. So even though it was scary, I definitely recommend it, and like I said, don't let your first travel assignment to tear you away from doing another one.

Haleigh Cave:       Oh man, my dream location for traveling, that's a really hard question because there are a lot of places I'd like to see. I think Hawaii is top on everybody's list, but I've heard you have to go there for six months and I don't know if I could do that, and so we'll see. I'm not sure. I have a feeling that my traveling might possibly come to an end soon, but hopefully not, so I don't know. Maybe see more of the East coast. That might be on way on my bucket list.