TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

Hello new and old friends! I always like to do a little recap, when I start reviewing a hospital, assignment, and apartment when we wrap up. My name is Dominique Bryant, and I’m a travel nurse currently traveling in the United States, with my husband. My husband Nicholas works in finance, and works from home. He is able to travel with me. We recently got married in October 2021, and decided to start travel nursing. I started travel nursing because I was very burnt out from COVID, and my primary nursing job in Maine. We recently just finished an assignment in Anchorage, Alaska. We were super excited to accept this job, as we always wanted to go to Alaska. When I say we, I mean really me, but my husband was also super excited. We took this job with the intent of doing some hiking, exploring some national parks, and also exploring other parts of Alaska. We really enjoyed this assignment, enough where we resigned another 13 weeks! Check out my other blogs for suggestions of some Alaska recs and our review of our first furnished finder in Alaska.

My husband and I are very busy people… On our way to our next assignment, we always make a bucket list for our assignment. It’s honestly one of my favorite things to do. I really enjoy suggesting things to future renters and readers. Follow my instagram for our adventures throughout the past 2.5 years at @travelingbeebryantRN (I can’t believe it’s been 2.5 years!!) See our condensed bucket list below for our Alaska assignment! ( How many places can you check off?!) We also included some great food, coffee, and drink places in the surrounding area. 

While we did a lot of fun things in Anchorage,and the surrounding area the last three months, we did come to Alaska to work. Kinda a drag right! I am a travel nurse, and I was hired to work at Alaska Native Medical Center.  I try not to talk about my experience at the medical center until my contract is over. At this point, my contract is over, and I can finally give you all the details! Honestly, I had a great experience at Alaska Native Medical Center. If it was closer to home, I definitely would consider going staff at this hospital.  I am a medsurg/medtele/IMC/PCU nurse. I was hired as a medtele travel nurse at Alaska Native. If you aren’t in the nursing field, you won’t understand this lingo, but these are some necessary things to know if you are going to accept an assignment here. The hospital used  Cerner charting system (bummer I know). On days, it was typical to have 4-5 patients on a medsurg or medtele floor. Typical drips on these floors were heparin, and PCA’s. It was out of the ordinary to have any kind of drip on this floor. If they required an insulin gtt or a cardiac gtt, they would go to an ICU.  They did not have a turn team, but had lab techs, respiratory therapy, SWAT nurses, IV therapy, and also transport teams. A lot of these resources were scarce on the weekends and intermittently available.  The patient care techs were mixed, some were absolutely amazing, and some of the best people I worked with, and some of them were not consistent. The hospital was VERY traveler friendly, and welcoming. Honestly, they were the friendliest of all hospitals. The staff were remarkable, and you can tell they love their hospital. That’s honestly hard to find. A lot of their nurses have been there a long time, and I can see why. I found the manager very welcoming and accommodating. She was actually present on the floor a lot of the time. She was always so open to talk to patients, or work together on an issue at hand. She’s the most responsive manager I’ve met… That is saying a lot. I hear staff often say, I wouldn’t stay here if it wasn’t for my manager.  Honestly, if this hospital was in Maine, I’d be signing immediately as staff. In terms of scheduling, they did put travelers on weekends, but were fair. I also had this placed in my contract ( every other weekend). I know other travelers that were placed on every weekend because they didn’t have anything placed in their contract. I would always consider (not just Alaska) to put a clause of weekend requirements in your contract.  The scheduler (who was the manager and one of the charge nurses) were also approachable, where if something didn’t work, you could email and ask if a switch was possible. This was huge for me. I think happiness deals a lot with balance with work life and home life. My husband works Monday through Friday, so if I worked every weekend, I wouldn’t be able to see him. He may think it’s great video game time, but I’ll disagree.I accepted 2 -13 week contracts, and had two weeks in between. I was hired for 36 hours a week.  I floated a lot in the hospital. The unit I worked for (4E) was in charge of two other small units, therefore, we staffed these two small units (2C and Phase 3). I honestly didn’t mind floating to these two floors, but I also floated to other medsurg floors (4W and 5W), along with the emergency room. The staff were super nice when you floated and it made it a lot easier. Honestly, I was a float nurse back in Maine, so floating doesn’t really affect me! I know a lot of nurses hate floating.In my contract, they were allowed to cancel for low census.  I was never canceled for low census. You were able to pick up a lot of overtime. Fortunately, Alaska comes with a shift bonus! It was worth picking up extra shifts at this assignment. This was truly my best experience as a travel nurse.

Now that I’m done with all the medical mumble jumble, I wanted to talk about the culture of the hospital. It was so different from anywhere I’ve been. I will forever feel stupid for my first week in Alaska. I asked a patient if they were from Anchorage, to which they responded they were from Hope Spring. I proceeded to ask if that was in Anchorage. I can remember his face, as he responded with definitely not. If you are looking at a map of Alaska, I’d be laughing at me too.

I went out to the secretary desk, and looked up where Hope Spring was on a map. I felt like an idiot, and walked right back in the room and said, “I’m not from here, sorry”.  We both giggled. When we admitted someone at the hospital, some of the main questions were, where are they from? What do they have for resources? Electricity? Running water? I never thought in 2024 in the United States, I’d be asking these questions. A lot of the patients were transferred from the Village, and other parts of Alaska. If you want to learn about the villages, look at my previous blogs of Alaska.

It made discharges very difficult. There were a lot of variable factors to consider, and a lot of pieces to the puzzle to figure out. It was never, let me order you a cab. This would get frustrating at first, as I didn’t know where places were and ways of transportation. It got easier, as time went on. The hospital was an Alaskan Native hospital, so a lot of the patients did not pay a hospital bill, or their way of traveling back home. The hospital had a “Hotel”, also known as patient housing, to assist with patients’ housing needs to do follow ups, or until they could travel home. This was free housing available provided by the hospital and state. I found that I had less patients stating they needed to leave AMA (against medical advice), because they couldn’t afford the medical bills.  Another thing I found interesting was honestly the kids running around… It’s definitely a family based hospital. The evenings had a drumming circle in the lobby, and afternoons were spent with kids visiting their loved ones. By visiting, I mean laying on the floors, playing and coloring.  Everyone knows everyone… That’s an odd concept to me!

This hospital is definitely an adjustment from Nebraska Medicine, or even Maine Medical Center in Portland. When I say an adjustment, it’s not a hard adjustment. It’s a small close knit hospital providing quality care to their patients. I would recommend Alaska Native Medical Center to any traveler. There’s a reason travelers go there… Now I want to touch base on our second furnished finder we stayed in for a second thirteen week contract.

If you caught on, we did two assignments in Anchorage. Our first assignment, we stayed in a small mother-in-law apartment on the outskirts of anchorage. Check out the review for that furnished finder on the blog. If you are interested in renting it,

Suite with a view | Furnished Finder

We had a hard time finding another apartment afterwards. Everyone seemed to be renting, and there were more and more travelers. I posted on an Alaska Nurses facebook group (great resource for travel nurses) and they suggested the W 6th Ave apartment. We reached out to the landlord, who showed us the apartment and informed us that it wasn’t anything special. Just really small. Nick checked out the apartment when I was working, and decided it would work! We signed a lease and we would return to move in 2 weeks.

I want to first touch on the location of the apartment. The apartment is located in downtown Anchorage, about 6 minutes away from the hospital, near businesses downtown, and also residential housing.  It was approximately 9 minutes away from the grocery store, and 15 minutes from Costco.I would say one con of the location would be the large amount of homeless people living in this area. We never found this to be troublesome, but just be aware of your surroundings.It’s also downtown, which can be good for a lot of things, but it’s definitely loud. To the man that revs his engine every night at 10:30pm, yes you are cool. We hear you.  The benefits of being so close to downtown were being able to walk to dinner, explore downtown, and even attend some events in Anchorage without driving.The apartment comes with a parking spot located in the back of the building in a parking lot. 

 Now, let’s talk more about Apt 403… we move every 13 weeks and need to make the new place our home. We do this simply by bringing items that remind us of home, and pictures of our families, and our rental dog (how we met). Unfortunately, our rental dog passed away just a few months ago. She had Cushings Disease, and lived a great life. She was such a special part of our lives, and we miss her greatly.

They say that home is where your heart is, and we believe that is true. We also believe that travel nursing has helped us grow as a couple, and as people. This assignment was difficult, as we could only bring what fits in our 4 suitcases (which included Nick’s work equipment). It was hard traveling without a lot of our personal belongings, and the traveling christmas tree (Nick’s happy it couldn’t come). Apt 403 was homey, even though we didn’t have a lot of our things. The landlord did a great job of doing that. She was very welcoming when we arrived, and made us feel at home.The day we flew into Anchorage, we met her at the apartment, where she showed us around, and answered any questions. We’ve also had great feedback from her with any issues we had (plumbing and laundry). It was fixed in adequate time, and felt like our issues were resolved rapidly.

The apartment is a small bedroom with one bath. The front door opens up into the living room and bathroom to the right. Nick used the living room as his office. The living room had two big closets, used for storage space. 

The kitchen was located off the living room. It is well stocked with plates, silverware, bowls, cups, and miscellaneous items. There were some key items that were missing, which is expected, and we picked them up as we went along. We plan on trying to sell these items when we leave, as they can’t come with us.  

The apartment was nicely furnished and had the essential kitchen appliances. If you have read my previous review on other apartments, you know that Nick and I prefer not a lot of clutter. This apartment did great at that, in which, the kitchen cabinets weren’t full of useless items. 

The bedroom was small with a bed, and two nightstands. A large closet was in the bedroom, great for hanging clothes. The room didn’t include a dresser, so we picked up some storage bins at Goodwill, along the way. Again, when we signed this apartment, we knew it was on the smaller side. It’s definitely not the smallest place we’ve stayed in.

We paid $1300 a month to live at West Sixth Ave in Anchorage. It also included parking,  and was close to work and other locations. Laundry was located in the building, but you had to pay $1.50 for a wash and $1.50 for a dry. I know that seems steep, but for a furnished apartment with utilities included that is pretty reasonable. I would recommend this apartment to any future tenants. 

Overall looking back at our experience in Anchorage and at West Sixth Ave apt,we would resign this lease, and this contract again. I was impressed with both our apartments and we had a great stay. I am VERY impressed with Alaska Native Medical Center, and how they treat their staff and patients. They provide quality medical care. If you are interested in either of our Anchorage apartments, please reach out and I can put you in contact with the landlord! If you have any questions about our assignment in Anchorage, please reach out! I’d love to convince you to go to Alaska! Stay up to date with all things travel, nursing, and of course Flicks_withNick’s movie reviews. Give us a follow on instagram or subscribe to this blog. Off to New York for the weekend before we start our next chapter.❤️ Goodbye Alaska… it is definitely hard leaving you. Thanks to my ANMC friends, otfsouthanchorage friends, and great landlords for making this a great experience.