Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nurses find LV lucrative landing

Shortage makes traveling profitable

James Brooks came to Las Vegas two years ago to begin a 13-week stint as a traveling emergency room nurse.

He hasn't left yet because he doesn't need to. The statewide nursing shortage has made traveling nurses such as Brooks a hot commodity. He can work in Las Vegas for as long as he wants, often making twice as much money as a regular nurse.

"Nurses are so short everywhere that you can find a spot you like and just stay there," said Brooks, who came from Michigan and now works at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center. "The pay is good as a traveling nurse."

Traveling nurses work for companies that recruit nurses for hospitals all over the United States. The nurses can pick and choose where they want to work and often have a choice of contract length: usually from 13 weeks to six months. The nurses usually get paid a higher hourly wage than on-staff nurses and usually get their housing, living expenses and benefits paid for by the agency for which they work.

Area hospital officials say they are using traveling nurses to fill gaps in their staffing more than ever before. Officials with Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center say they've doubled the number of traveling nurses used in the past decade.

"Traveling nurses have really been more popular since the nursing shortage," said Dee Hicks, chief nursing officer for Sunrise. "At any given time, we have about 60 traveling nurses working at the hospital."

Nevada has the nation's worst nurse-to-population ratio, with 520 nurses per 100,000 people. The national average is 782.

Brooks said he makes $28 an hour as a traveling nurse as opposed to about $20 an hour. He also has all his living expenses paid.

"It's about double the pay," he said. "I just bought a house in Henderson and I still get compensation and a stipend for living expenses. That's covering my mortgage."

Brooks works for Maxim Healthcare Services, a national traveling nurse agency with offices in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas office has been open for three years, said Dan Powers, senior recruiter for Maxim.

"What we do is basically sell Las Vegas to other nurses," Powers said. "The shortage of nurses is so great here, we're regularly recruiting."

Traveling nurses are registered nurses and must be licensed in the state in which they work.

Often, traveling nurses like to escape snowy winters and repeatedly come to Las Vegas to work for a few months each year, said Candyce Wehrkamp, vice president of human resources at St. Rose Dominican Hospital.

"We like to use traveling nurses and we tend to get the same snowbirds back each year," Wehrkamp said. "Yes, they cost more, but they really do help with the nursing shortage and fill the void."