Explore Exotic Locations on the Job: Cruise Ship Travel Nursing

Travel nursing is a fast growing field, with new career avenues becoming available every day. Among the most popular forms of travel nursing is cruise ship nursing. Cruise ship lines are required under the law to provide an onboard medical staff to handle any medical emergencies during the trip, as well as treat minor illness or injury among the crew or passengers. This staff generally includes two physicians and one to four Registered Nurses, depending upon the size of the ship and the health care facilities it has on board.

To be employed as a cruise ship travel nurse, one must have an up-to-date nursing license and recent hospital nursing experience, a minimum of two years in most cases, ensuring the ability to handle emergency health situations. Experience in cardiac care, internal medicine, and trauma are generally required, and travel nurses must complete training in cruise ship safety. Generally, travel nurses who work with cruise lines regularly will spend six months on board ship, and then have two months off before the next voyage.

Among the duties of the cruise ship travel nurse is to go through drills with other crew members to prepare for any possible emergency at sea. Helping in the coordination of emergency at sea evacuation plans in the case of a critical illness or injury onboard is another task relegated to the cruise ship travel nurse, as is accompanying such a victim through the evacuation and to an emergency facility, usually by helicopter.

Cruise ship travel nurses are also valuable members of the medical team that is in charge of the occupational and general health of the crew - which can number from one to three thousand members who live on board the ship for months at a time. Maintaining and updating the medical charts of the crew members is the job of the cruise ship travel nurse, as well as managing insurance paperwork involved in their care.

An ability to interact with people from a variety of cultures is essential to cruise ship travel nursing, as passengers, crew, and co-workers in the medical staff are often from a range of countries. Cultural differences in the use and expectations of health care services can be a bit difficult to sort out for the new cruise ship nurse, and must be handled with diplomacy.

While the life of the cruise ship travel nurse holds a great deal of responsibility and hard work, there are many benefits as well. A gorgeous Bahamas sunset is hard to come by in the typical hospital emergency room, and the tight-knit community of a cruise line crew makes the atmosphere friendly and relaxing. These benefits and many others make cruise ship positions among the most sought after in the travel nursing field.