Name: Romero, Kristel Q.

Course: NCM 111 Lecture

Year & Section: BSN 3106 Date: October 2, 2023

Activity in Nursing Research Lecture I : Look for an article, journal, dissertation, research studies about
"The Nursing Practice as a Travel Nurse"
Article Accessed through Google Scholar: COVID-19’s Impact On Nursing Shortages, The Rise Of
Travel Nurses, And Price Gouging

1. What are the main functions of a "Travel Nurse"

Being a travel nurse basically functions just like other nurses but they are hired in understaffed health
institutions as short-term nurses. They are named as “travel nurses” because they work in different hospitals,
clinics, and other health facilities in just a short period of time. They have no permanent workplace because
they switch institutions from time to time depending on the place they are hired to work. Specifically, they are
responsible for providing care and carrying out nursing interventions such as administering medications,
assessing blood pressure, blood glucose level, and other tests as they travel to patient’s homes, school, and
other organizations. In addition, they also promote health and advocate for the patient’s health and well-
being.

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of nursing practice?
Most advantages of being a travel nurse include an increase in salary compared to working full-time.
Since most hospitals need more staff, they are forced to hire “travel nurses” to address the inadequacy of
workers. With this, the demand for travel nurses rose especially in the midst of the pandemic due to COVID-
19, increasing salary offers. Also, one of the great things that travel nurses can do is to manage their own
schedule, allowing breaks in between working assignments. In addition, travel nurses are capable of working
in economically-disadvantaged areas with their income.

On the other hand, disadvantages include pay discrepancies in the nurses working full-time. In case
full-time nurses discover how these short-term nurses earn more than them, other nurses may be encouraged
to resign and work also as travel nurses, leading to hospitals having inadequate nursing staff. It has an impact
in the competence of the hospital because it has been proven that inadequacy of nursing staff is linked to
increased rate of morbidity and mortality (Yang, Y. & Mason, D., 2022).
3. What theoretical framework can you apply about this practice?
Since the travel nurses work in a different place temporarily within a short period of time, I think I can
apply “Transcultural Nursing Theory” by Madeleine M. Leininger to this practice because it involves
providing essential and efficient nursing care services to people in accordance with their cultural values and
health-illness context which requires learning and understanding different nursing cultures and health-illness
caring practices, beliefs, and values. Due to their nature of work, travel nurses must develop and apply the
“Transcultural Nursing Theory" into practice because they will encounter people with varying culture, beliefs,
and lifestyle across their career. This will also help them in providing holistic nursing care to patients in order
to attain a better health outcome.

4. In doing your research studies, as a whole, what do you think are the characteristics or traits that you want
to develop in yourself? Explain briefly.
Throughout the years of having research as a major requirement in my subjects, I think I can say
that the trait that I want to develop and improve is being a critical thinker. Since research can be really tricky
at times, especially if you select a complicated topic, you will need to think carefully and have an advanced
understanding of the topic in order to defend it. Also, this will help me in interpreting the data that I have
gathered.

Reference Material:
Yang, Y. T., & Mason, D. J. (2022). COVID-19’s impact on nursing shortages, the rise of travel nurses, and
price gouging. Health Affairs Forefront.

Bsn, A. G., RN. (2023). Madeleine Leininger: Transcultural Nursing Theory. Nurseslabs.
https://nurseslabs.com/madeleine-leininger-transcultural-nursing-theory/