eJane

As a travel nurse, you probably lift a lot. Mostly patients and chances are, none of them are light.

It’s not unusual for travel nurses to lift and move 20 or more patients each day, weighing more than 100 pounds each. Such intense activity contributes to the high rates of injuries and far exceeds what is expected of workers employed by other high-risk professions, such as truck drivers, warehouse workers and construction workers. National statistics indicate that 1 in 10 on-the-job musculoskeletal injuries happen to nurses.

That statistic includes travel nurses.

Relying on data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Nurses Association estimates that almost 12 out of 100 nurses in hospitals leave their careers each year as a consequence of musculoskeletal injuries that have resulted in chronic pain. This proportion is bound to increase as the average age of the nursing work force continues to rise.