Articles : Travel Nursing
ER Nurse Enjoys Variety of Assignments08/04/05 by Susan Schneider
Coquet Williams has the soft, calm voice of someone who is content and happy with her life’s choices.
After listening to her stories, you might ask, "What’s not to like?"
Williams, an emergency room nurse, and her husband, Jerry, are self-described "gypsies at heart" who are enjoying traveling to places they would never have experienced if she hadn’t decided to try travel nursing after their children left the nest.
"Jerry was in the military when we first got married," Williams explained. "So there was a lot of international travel in the early years. But after he retired from the military, he worked in the high-tech industry for 19 years and we stayed pretty much in one place for a long time."
"After he retired the second time, he was ready to get out and travel again," Williams said. "And I really wanted to experience other places and cultures. I was curious about how other people live, how other organizations are run and how different emergency rooms are structured. Travel nursing seemed to suit us both."
Williams works with the travel nurse staffing agency Nurses Rx. Her first assignment was at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, near Palm Springs. It is a beautiful facility located in a very affluent community, with ties to many dignitaries and celebrities.
Williams, who explained that she is from a middle-class background of farmers and ranchers in a rural area of Arizona, said it was an eye-opening experience.
"It was like another culture to me," she said. "I kind of expected the staff to be snooty or something. But they couldn’t have been nicer. In fact, almost three quarters of the nursing staff was comprised of travelers. We were welcomed and appreciated by everyone. It was a wonderful medical center and patient population that I never would have experienced otherwise. I really enjoyed being there."
From the glamour of that resort-like community, Williams went to the opposite end of the spectrum. She chose an assignment at a tiny, 26-bed hospital on an Indian reservation on the Utah/Arizona border.
She loved that experience too.
"I worked the night shift and sometimes it was only me and a physician’s assistant or me and one doctor on duty," Williams said. "There were only 5 beds in the ER, so we often prepared emergency patients to be airlifted to larger hospitals in St. George, Utah or Flagstaff, Arizona. Many of the flight nurses on the fixed-wings and helicopters also worked at our hospital, so I was exposed to their lifestyle, too.
The hospital was located near Lake Powell, a big, recreational lake. Williams recalled one night when 13 people were admitted with carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak on their houseboat.
"Two people had to be airlifted out," she said. "We took care of the rest. What a night."
Though she found the assignment on the Indian reservation to be "scary…at first," with more autonomy than she’d ever experienced, Williams said. "After a while, I found the challenges and diversity of cases and people to be very stimulating."
Williams and her husband have also lived in Northern California, in the history-rich gold mining country and in North Carolina. The latter location was chosen so Jerry could be near his mother, who was ill at the time. When his mother was well, they chose an assignment in Arizona to be near their grandchildren for a few months.
Williams said the flexibility to accept assignments based on personal needs and curiosities is just great.
"We are in no hurry to settle in one place," Williams said. "My husband and I are both enjoying the adventures. If you can go with the flow and adapt to new people and places, I say jump into travel nursing with both feet."
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