As a traveling nurse you will need to be able to adapt to your surroundings quickly. Since s/he will be traveling to new areas and dealing with different jobs on each assignment the traveling nurse accepts this is one very important draw backs to the job if you are not able to adapt quickly.
Since nursing deals a lot with interaction to patients and your co-workers if you are a shy person then meeting new people constantly may also be a drawback. If you take a long time to build a good working interaction with your co-workers becoming a traveling nurse may be a drawback.
As a traveling nurse you need to be able to adjust to out of the ordinary situations and the unexpected. If you like and are more comfortable in surroundings that you know and are familiar with then a career as a traveling nurse may not be the wise choice for you as you are constantly changing your surroundings. When you travel things can go wrong, no mater how much you have planned no matter how much detail you have put into your plans the unexpected will happen. If you are uncomfortable dealing with problems that can arise during travels then you may want to look into a more contemporary nursing job. If you love the security of home life a traveling nurse moves around a lot and their home is in various parts of the country while they are employed by different assignments.
If you are the type of person who likes to be close to their family and can not deal with being away from their family for long periods of times then you need to be aware that a traveling nurse can be gone for roughly 6 week periods of time to much longer. A typical assignment lasts from 6 weeks on up to 52 weeks. The one plus to this is that you can choose your assignments and choose the places you are willing to relocate so if you wish to only go a matter of a few hours away or 2 days away the choice is yours to accept an assignment or not.
Another draw back is that you are on call usually 24 hours a day because you are living on site, or if you are on a cruise ship assignment your services will be rendered as needed. For people who wish to work a set schedule this can sometimes be upsetting to them mentally and physically.
There is sometimes even co-worker resentment to deal with. When a co-worker finds out you are a traveling nurse they know you are being paid higher for the same work that they are doing. This sometimes leads to resentment awkward working situations. The best way to deal with situations like this is to be pleasant and helpful and to understand that you are there to do a job. A lot of times it will even have a non traveling nurse look into becoming a traveling nurse.
Lastly one of biggest drawbacks is dealing with two employers.
The agency you work for and the facility that hired the agency to place a nurse in their employ. Sometimes the provisions in your contract with your agency will conflict with the regulations that the facility is trying to have you work.
