Sarah the Nurse BC Travel Nurse

Travel nursing in BC - Oh Sarah B the places you will go #4- blogged Sarah Hennings After a month in my cozy corner of the public health office, I, Sarah Hennings, was now on a plane to Prince George. The two hour drive in the morning in the cab back to the city had seemed a little more riskier than I liked. While naive to the roadways, everyone seemed overly confident for that heavy fogged up morning and narrow winding roads. The driver, however, assured me this is mountain driving and simply laughed at my concerns calling me a “flat lander”. He was right, we arrived safely without incident, just as everyone else on the road had that morning. This quickly made me wonder if it was my own anxiety creeping in telling me I couldn’t do it at a new location, or if people were crazy drivers out here?! Thoughts circled my head, making me panic, would they like me, would they accept me, are my skills really good enough enough for outpost nursing??! I am just a nurse, I have no critical care, o...

I, #SarahHennings grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan so I figured I knew what remote was. But I, #SarahHennings, didn’t. Early Monday morning the staffing agency called and let me know there was a Tuberculosis outbreak within a neighbouring community. They asked if I would be willing to change assignments and head more inland to help with testing. This was a small rural site where some community members do not have phones and therefore you have to track them down in their homes to provide care. There was a grave need for assistance because the health unit was already running on “bare bones” staffing and the village already had 10 active cases. She told me I, Sarah Hennings,    would have to go back to Fort St John, then to Prince George, and then get on another plane to fly into location.  Fly in to location? What exactly do you mean fly-in to a location? I, #SarahHennings was quite comfortable in my public health nursing role in my nice office, working with the babies, ma...

OFF to a Great Start Off to a great start, I #SarahHennings, really like this job. Working with moms, babies, kids, and great staff, who would not want to be in this community?! While remote and northern and wildly primitive with some of its resources, it’s bonded together with a sense of commodore. Being a newer nurse practitioner (GNP) and a newer RN in this type of role, working in remote communities was new for me. While nursing can take you places you never thought you could be, northern BC wasn’t initially on my radar. Wanting a change of pace to all my normal nursing in Alberta, I, Sarah Hennings, crossed the mountain border into the west and used my registration with BCCNM to experience a different vibe.   I, #SarahHennings, have been here now for about a week. The drive back and forth between where I stay and work is relaxing. It lets me think about my life and reflect on what I need to fill my cup right now. My life has been crazy lately with changes on the home front, so...

True North  Northern BC is like nothing else that I, #SarahHennings had ever seen before. Growing up in the Saskatchewan prairies and currently living in Medicine Hat, Alberta, this place seemed cold, damp, and plastered with trees. Having worked up in Fort McMurray and Grade Prairie all the way up to near the NWT border, I was thinking I understood what cold meant and what trees looked like. But this was much different than my norm. I am not sure what I was expecting from this pacific coast line and rainforest all around me, but none the less, I didn’t see it like this. But amidst the brisk autumn weather and tall, tall trees was a sense of tranquility and purity in the air that I had never felt before. I knew this was a good idea. I, #SarahHennings, flew into Fort St John after deciding I needed a change of pace from my life in southern Alberta. It was September and autumn was in full force. A graduate nurse practitioner, RN, and career-long healthcare worker, I decided to take a...