By Claire Brocato, feature writer
Being married to a military man, Terry Evans, RN, became accustomed to
packing up and moving to new places on a regular basis.
However, once her husband retired, the couple had no intention of putting
down roots. Instead, they wanted to continue their life on the road.
"What makes travel nursing so wonderful" Evans said, "is that we get to
choose where we want to go, instead of being told where to go. What a
treat!"
This labor and delivery nurse chose American Mobile Healthcare
as her travel company because of the recruiter she spoke to when she first
contacted the company.
"Kathleen, the recruiter, was so friendly, with such a nice "bedside
manner"," she said. "She’s been my recruiter since I started traveling two years
ago and I wouldn’t give her up for anything!"
For her first travel nursing assignment, Evans and her husband left their
home in Homer, Alaska, and traveled across the country to Port St Lucie,
Florida.
"Talk about one extreme to the next," she laughed. "We loved it, though, and
spent ten months there."
During her travels, Evans also found the time to write a story, based on her
nursing experience, which has been published in a book entitled Intensive
Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses, an anthology of creative writing by
nurses from around the country and across the world. The book, compiled by nurse
practitioners Cortney Davis and Judy Schaefer, was released on Nurses Day 2003
and is a sequel to their first volume of nursing stories: Between the
Heartbeats: Poetry and Prose by Nurses.
"I saw an advertisement in a nursing journal, asking nurses to submit their
stories and poetry," recalled Evans, "so I sent them a piece about a couple I’d
met when I first started working in a doctor’s office 30 years ago. The story
focused on my relationship with them, not only as a nurse, but also as a friend.
It was very special to me and I was delighted that the editors saw the value of
what I was trying to communicate."
"All the stories and poetry contained in this book really touch on the
emotions you feel as a nurse–love, fear, hope, and the desire to save. It’s
filled with writing that any nurse can relate to."
Evans and her husband have since traveled to Brownsville, Texas; Chinle,
Arizona and Boulder, Colorado.
"Working as a labor and delivery travel nurse has given me the opportunity to
learn about the culture of giving birth amongst so many different kinds of
people," she said. "I’ve worked with Mexican, Haitian and Native American
patients and learned the special traditions and customs that each culture
associates with the birth of a child. It’s been a very enriching and rewarding
experience, and something I will always treasure."
"I can honestly say that I have learned more in the two years that I’ve
worked as a travel nurse than the 30 years before that," Evans said. "It’s been
an incredible experience."
© 2003. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.