Travel nurse says she earned her rent in just one day’s work

The pandemic has put medical professionals in the spotlight like never before.

Using this spotlight, scores of medical workers shared the many woes of their job, from the pressure to work extra shifts to understaffing issues and the high levels of stress people in their positions experience.

One of the many issues that arose during this period was how nurses were paid. Nurses have gone viral by claiming that the increase in work hasn’t been matched by a corresponding pay rise — all at a time when medical school costs were skyrocketing and hospital administrators were seeing pay increases.

In response to these problems, some nurses have become “travelling nurses” – nurses who fill in at various facilities facing teacher shortages.

While there’s added stress from constant movement, traveling nurses can be compensated significantly better than their stationary counterparts, as TikTok user Lisha (@_itsalishaa) recently shared on the viral success.

@_itsalishaa #agencynurse #fyp #foryou #travelnurselife #travelnursesoftiktok #nursetoks #nursebae #relatable #xyzbca #blacknursetiktok #cna #lpn #rn #studentnurses #nursingstudent #cnasoftiktok #healthcareworkers #nightshiftnurse #nightshift #viralvideo #trend #fypシ #314 # stl #amazonsavingspree #icurn #icunurse #travelingnurse #flexeveryangle #trendingsong ♬ ABUH – xie

In a video with over 414,000 views on Friday, Lisha describes how much money she’s made as a traveling nurse.

“Say what you will about Travel Nurses, but I just did my rental in a day,” she writes in the caption that overlays the video.

In an article for NBC, author Jean Lee notes that traveling nursing isn’t as profitable today as it was when the pandemic began.

“By 2021, traveling nurses were making an average of $124.96 an hour, according to the research firm — three times the hourly rate of employed nurses, according to federal statistics,” Lee writes.

This was not a permanent change. Lee notes that “Demand [for travel nurses] fell 42 percent from January to July [of 2022]’, and in a later article for NBC, also written by Lee, she says that some traveling nurses’ salaries are falling to lower levels than before the pandemic.

However, there are some areas where travel nurses can still make a significant amount of money.

“Wage packages for travel nurses, who typically sign 13-week contracts, have declined and are in the $3,000 range. That’s still a significant increase from the $1,500 a pre-COVID travel nurse could typically make,” writes Marty Cook for Arkansas Business, citing Taylor Faught, CEO of TRS Healthcare.

The need for travel nurses was initially driven in part by additional needs due to COVID-19; Now traveling nurses are needed in part because nurses are leaving their jobs or profession altogether.

“According to this year’s Nursing Solutions Human Resources report, nurses are getting out of bed at ‘an alarming rate’ due to increasing patient numbers and their own exhaustion and burnout,” Lee writes in the article cited above. “The average hospital has changed 100.5% of its workforce in the last five years, according to the report, and the annual turnover rate has now reached 25.9%, beating any previous survey.”

For her part, Lisha seems happy with her position.

When a user in the comments asked, “How does it feel living my dream?” She replied, “It’s beautiful.”

We contacted Lisha via Instagram direct message.

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