Rx for Success: How ICU Nurse Shannon Coghlan Learned She’s What a Nurse Should Be

• Share Story
• 
• 
• 

In Vivian Health’s ongoing Rx for Success series, we profile a healthcare provider from our platform each week, highlighting critical career moments fueling their renewed passion for healthcare.

Nurses find their way into healthcare via a variety of pathways. For instance, in the first post of our Rx for Success series, we met nurse practitioner Elana Scharff, who earned a bachelor’s degree with a double major in psychology and Spanish and pursued a career in research before she found the inspiration to enter nursing.

Conversely, some nurses grow up knowing they want to be a nurse from the get-go. Meet one such nurse, Shannon Coghlan, who works as an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse in travel positions she finds using Vivian Health.

“From an early age, I loved taking care of and comforting others,” Coghlan told us. “I would be that child at the playground who would want to put a bandage on your scraped knee.”

ICU Nurses Support Families Even During End-of-Life Care

While Coghlan always saw herself in nursing, it was an experience her uncle had in the ICU that inspired her to specialize in this field.

“Unfortunately, in my second year of nursing school, my uncle sadly passed away in the cardiac ICU,” she recounted. “Although it was so hard seeing him the way that he was, I loved how the nurses interacted with him and my family. From that moment, I knew I wanted to do critical care and set my mind to exactly that.”

Before even graduating from nursing school, Coghlan had a job lined up in a cardiovascular medical and surgical ICU. However, she didn’t sugarcoat the reality that being an ICU nurse is challenging.

“About eight months in, I questioned if this career was even for me because of how overwhelmed I felt on a day-to-day basis,” Coghlan explained. 

ICU nurses care for high-risk patients who typically need close monitoring and care. They assess a patient’s condition throughout their shift, take vitals, administer medications and keep doctors and families updated. Moreover, intensive care patients may be on multiple IV drips, ventilators or other machines that supplement the performance of a patient’s weakened organs and body systems. Coghlan recounted the story of one of her patients who needed her total attention.

“One week, I took care of a patient who was extremely sick. He was so sick that they made him a 1:1, meaning he was my only patient,” she recalled. “He was ventilated and sedated, on 10 different IV drips, chemically paralyzed and proned.”

“My first night taking care of him, we had to cardiovert him within the first hour I was there. I was so busy that night that I didn’t get to eat or take a break. Even though he was hemodynamically stable by the end of my shift, I still felt like I wasn’t doing enough.”

Unfortunately, the condition of Coghlan’s patient didn’t improve, and by the end of the week, the family decided to withdraw care.

“The patient’s sibling cried in my arms and was so thankful and appreciative of everything I did that week,” Coghlan said. “They told me, ‘You are what a nurse should be.’ From that moment on, I had a little more confidence, and it reminded me of exactly why I was doing this career in the first place.”

A New Lifestyle with Travel Nursing and Vivian Health

Over the past year, Coghlan has remained in the ICU but also has discovered a new way of life by switching to travel nursing.

“Last fall, I decided to start travel nursing. After a quick Google search, I came across Vivian. The website was so easy to navigate that within a few weeks, I was on my first travel assignment in New Jersey.”

Coghlan discovered that with the right travel position, she could earn her typical income much faster, leaving time for other activities over the course of the year.  Because of the intensity of the patient care, ICU nurses earn a higher average salary than non-critical care RNs. Travel ICU nurses typically earn even more compared to staff nurses in their specialty. 

“My first travel assignment ever was found with Vivian. I made my entire year’s ICU nurse salary within four months,” she said.  “This allowed me to take some time off and do a medical mission trip in the Philippines. Travel nursing allows so much freedom and flexibility to work when you want and where you want.”

Coghlan earned Vivian VIP status after downloading the Vivian app, completing 90% of her profile and updating her job preferences.

“I get priority access to travel assignments within my specialty, which allows me to have first dibs on the higher-paying jobs available,” she told us. “After I became a Vivian VIP, I noticed the jobs in my search were higher paying than previously. I noticed that recruiters were responding a lot quicker after becoming a Vivian VIP.”

Based on her experience with Vivian, Coghlan said she’s through with other job search strategies.

“I went to a job fair, and let me just say, never again!” she exclaimed. “My whole day felt wasted after hearing what the pay was like. I want to show others that you can find a better-paying job simply by sitting on your couch.”

Although employers typically require travel nurses to have at least one to two years of experience, Coghlan wants nurses who haven’t tried travel positions to know that the amount of experience nurses need before trying out travel jobs is based on their comfort level. It’s all about when they feel confident.

“The advice I would give is to do it when you feel ready,” she explained. “People may discourage you and tell you that you need three years of experience, that you need five years of experience, etc. It can make you feel unsure when you get a lot of opinions from people. My advice would be to get enough experience to where you feel confident with your skills.”

Feeling confident and want to search for your first travel nurse job? Explore your career options at Vivian Health.