(PHOTOS: COURTESY OF MICHELLE)
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There often comes a time when you face a crossroads: Do you continue with the status quo or pursue the unknown? For Michelle
Salladino, RN, BSN, that point came five years into her career as a telemetry nurse. "Suddenly all my friends were getting
married and settling down," she says. "But I had just ended a relationship and felt like I needed a change. I had always contemplated
living the mobile lifestyle, so I knew it was time to either start traveling or I would not do it at all." And without much
trepidation, Salladino set off on her life as a travel nurse.
Fateful meetings
After a brief local assignment, Salladino told her representative at Supplemental Health Care, a staffing company located
in Park City, Utah, that she really wanted to be placed in Burlington, Vermont, for her first full-fledged mobile contract.
"My recruiter asked for a second and third choice in case she was unable to find an assignment there, but I knew that was
where I wanted to be," Salladino recalls. Luckily, her wish was granted with a contract at Fletcher Allen Health Care, an
academic medical center.
Within the first week on the job, Salladino befriended a fellow traveler. "Not only was she assigned to my unit and my shifts,
but we lived in the same apartment complex," she says. Of course, the pair made plans to go out. What Salladino remembers
most about that initial outing was that her new friend issued a fateful prediction. Salladino says, "We were at a pub waiting
for someone else to join us when she said, 'You are really lucky to be here with me because everyone who hangs out with me
meets their husbands." At the time, Salladino dismissed the comment, and the friends enjoyed their evening and arranged to
get together for a Super Bowl party the following week. Before the football festivities, though, Salladino hit the legendary Vermont ski runs, unsure if she was still in a party
mood after an afternoon on the slopes. "I was exhausted and wondered whether I really want to go out," she notes. With a little
coaxing from her new friend, Salladino changed her mind and walked over to the party, still expecting to call it an early
night. That all changed when she laid eyes on partygoer Jeremy Scott, RN, BC, PPCN. "It was one of those things where I knew
this was someone who was going to be an important person in my life. He was friendly and warm and had a certain quality about
him," she remembers.
The courtship
The travel nurse and student soon became inseparable despite her full schedule and his part-time job and class load at a nursing
school located about two hours' away. "We ended up having the same weekends off, so it was easy to schedule dates," Salladino
says. Not surprisingly, she opted to extend the contract. "We got pretty serious pretty quickly," she admits. At the end of
her multiple extensions, Scott was able to take off a semester from school to accompany Salladino to her next assignment in
New York City. When he returned to finish his education, the mobile professional secured a repeat contract in Vermont. Indeed,
it was a pattern the couple adopted until he graduated.
"Every time my staffing company asked if Fletcher Allen had a position available, the managers took me back on the same unit.
I loved that facility because it was run like clockwork," Salladino says. Both Salladino and Scott agreed that they hoped
to travel together, but first he had to gain some full-time experience. They realized this might require the two be apart
at times as she continued to accept assignments. "We did not always have the most conventional relationship," she says. "Sometimes
we lived together, and sometimes we were in different cities."
Still, she wanted to show her support and accompanied Scott to an interview at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina,
where he was hired to practice on the cardiac thoracic step-down unit. On impulse, Salladino mentioned to the nurse manager
that she was a traveler. "She said the hospital was looking for travelers at the time and that I probably could get a position,"
Salladino recalls. "So I called my recruiter and asked her to get the paperwork underway." Before Salladino and Scott knew
it, the year had passed and the pair took off together for assignments in Maryland and Florida.
