Traveling Nurse Jessica Boyers - Neuro PCU - The Atlas Life #72

Braden Boex: Hi, I'm Braden Boex. I'm a recruiter here with Atlas MedStaff. I met Jessica way back, like fairly early after I started out as MedStaff. I was referred to her by another nurse that I just knew from the Omaha area, and we just kind of clicked. And so we probably talked for seven, eight months before we even start looking at jobs, because she was in kind of like a long-term contract in an area that she needed to stay in. And so she wasn't like super traveling at the time, but we just kind of hit it off and were talking until suddenly it was, "All right, Braden, let's find a job." So we did. It was like a total 180 from what we had been talking about. Yeah, we definitely went from, I need a job right where I'm at, to I need a job anywhere else but here.

Jessica Boyers: My name is Jessica Boyers. I have been traveling for a little over two years now. I am a progressive care nurse and I specialize in neuro. I had met Atlas my first TripOn. Like one of the guys was going to his hotel room, y'all were done for the week, and he specifically brought me a shirt. So I was like interested in Atlas from day one. And just getting the contact with Braden that I did and like us meshing as well as we have, I couldn't not go with Atlas.

Jessica Boyers: Oh my gosh, I love Bradon. Like I cannot even tell you that enough. Like him and I and our GIF wars that we have on a weekly basis is pretty freaking fabulous. I don't know, honestly like I don't even consider him like a recruiter per se, because I've had recruiters. He's more like a friend to be very honest. He's just so personable and he actually cares about you.

Jessica Boyers: My dad had gotten into a car accident, and I was going through a really rough time being in a travel assignment two hours away from home, and having to deal with that during my assignment. And he reached out to me and was like... This was like, I wasn't even with Atlas at this point. And he reached out to me and was like, "Do you need anything? I can send whatever. Like I hope everything's okay." And that just opened my eyes to be like, oh wow, he cares about me as a person, not just as a nurse, a number. And that made me say I don't care where I'm at, what I have to do, I'm going to work with Braden.

Jessica Boyers: So originally I had worked at a hospital, my first hospital that I ever worked at. I was there for seven years and I definitely wanted to advance my career in nursing. So I decided to take a leap, and go to a level 1 trauma center where I'm from. And my transition from a small community hospital to a level 1 trauma center went smoothly. And I'd always wanted to do travel since nursing school. So I was like, if I can go from a small community hospital to a level 1 trauma center and be able to pick up all the information that I need as quick as I did, then I can definitely do traveling.

Jessica Boyers: So I think the best part of being a travel nurse is the fact that you get to go to all these cool places. Already on my assignment in Massachusetts. My goal of being up here in New England was to get to see all of what New England has to offer. I've been to Connecticut. I've been to Maine. I just got back from Canada. I went to Montreal and Quebec City. So I think that's like the biggest perk for me is that I get to explore and see all the things. Basically I get to do it as a job. I work my three days a week and then when I'm off I'm constantly doing something.

Jessica Boyers: Starting out with travel nursing, I think the hardest thing for me with travel nursing is just finding housing and knowing where to live. And finding something that is within the range of what we're allotted. I'm actually in school for my masters in nursing informatics. So for me, I am super excited about being exposed to all the different charting systems that I've gotten to have exposure to. So I think that that might be one of the hardest things or challenging things that I've experienced so far.

Jessica Boyers: So I am spending my contract, my six weeks here in Massachusetts, just so that I can get to see and do more of the New England lifestyle. And then after TripOn... because that was another reason why I wanted to extend so that I could be here until TripOn, because I'm going back to Vegas for this year for my third year... I am going to be going to South Carolina, specifically hopefully Columbia, because I have a friend that lives down there. And also just because like it's close to Atlanta and a couple other places that I'm interested in seeing. And I think from there I'm going to go out West.