For former travel nurse, all roads lead to Auburn Medical Center

Christina Isringhausen has a running joke: All her roads lead back to MultiCare Auburn Medical Center.

Her journey started six years ago, when she and her cat Maui left their home near St. Louis, Mo., for a travel nurse contract in Dallas.

Toward the end of that contract, she and a friend were sitting outside when a recruiter called.

“How about a job just outside of Seattle?” the recruiter asked.

“No way,” Isringhausen responded, and hung up the phone. She didn’t want to go to a land of rain when she could bask in the sun in the middle of winter.

Her friend eyed her.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to be a travel nurse to try new things?” she asked. “Have new experiences?”

Isringhausen blinked. Then called the recruiter back. She spent the rest of the winter at Auburn Medical Center’s emergency department.

“I probably would have extended, but I had already made a pact with another traveler that we’d spend the summer in Florida,” she says.

After a few weeks of sunny beaches, Isringhausen came back to Auburn and extended twice. She reached the limit for contracts during that time period, so she went home to St. Louis for a while, taking a staff position and completing her bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Then along came COVID-19.

By the end of 2020, Isringhausen was itching to travel once again. She took a contract to start in January in Minnesota, working along with a friend who had a staff position.

As the end of that contract approached, the road to Auburn called again. She called the recruiter.

“I want to go back to Auburn,” she told them.

The road to education, leadership

There are two things Isringhausen loves to do: be a nurse and help educate other nurses.

Back in Auburn — for the third time — Candice Murdock gave Isringhausen her orientation. At the time, Murdock was a staff nurse in the ED and had just accepted a role in nursing professional development (NPD).

As they chatted, Isringhausen mentioned she recently earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, with a goal of becoming an educator. There was an NPD spot open at MultiCare’s off-campus emergency departments, Murdock told her — a full-time, permanent position.

Isringhausen applied.

“It was a hard decision between being a traveler and taking a full-time role,” she says. “But I love precepting and teaching nurses new things.”

And, if she’s honest, there are downsides to being a traveler, she says.

“You’re not looking for housing every three months,” Isringhausen says. “Starting a new contract is like the first day of school. You don’t know anyone or where things are. There’s also a lack of stability. Contracts get canceled sometimes.”

In late spring 2022, the position for assistant nurse manager in the emergency department at Auburn Medical Center opened up. The road again led her back to Auburn. She started the job in June.

“I personally have grown to advance into these positions and see it as a way to have a positive influence to grow this department,” she says. “I’ve done contracts all over and this is the place I kept coming back to.”

‘I feel safe here’

A few months into the permanent position, Isringhausen feels like she’s got the basics down pat.

“It’s not perfect — no ED is,” she says. “But the teamwork and collaboration here is different than in other places I’ve ever been. There were some places where I felt unsafe. I feel safe here.”

The best thing is the work family she has built.

“I know I can go to my managers for anything I need,” Isringhausen says. “And I try to do the same for the team. My door is open. I am out on the floor. I work to ensure everyone feels confident that they can come to me.”

And yes, her staffing matrix has a number of travelers on it. She’s working on that one.

“We have some great travelers, and every day when I see them, I put out the offer, ‘Do you want to stay? You know it’s great here!’ I’ll keep at them.”