What dreams are made of – join our LifeFlight team

Image you’re a bedside nurse – but the bed is in a tiny room. A thousand feet above the ground. Moving at 150 miles per hour.

Sound like the makings of a dream?

It is for LifeFlight RNs like Geoff, Mat, Brian, and Jennifer.

“We get to fly,” Geoff said. “That’s super cool.”

But it’s not just about flying in a helicopter that makes this role remarkable.

“When I go into my shift tomorrow, I'm not going to know where I'm going to end up or what I'm going to see or do,” Geoff said. “I think just the excitement of it, the randomness of it, it’s really hard to get into a rut in this job.”

This position definitely has the cool factor and offers the opportunity to make a big impact. If that’s not enough to convince you to continue in your career in nursing as part of the LifeFlight team, then hear more from Geoff, Mat, Brian, and Jennifer as to why they like being a registered nurse for LifeFlight at Allegheny Health Network and why you should come join the flight team!

Opportunities to continue to learn and grow as a nurse

Whether your background in nursing comes from the ICU or the emergency department, being on the LifeFlight team gives you opportunities to continue to grow and learn in your career.

“As I got towards the top of our seniority on the inpatient side, I knew I wasn't done learning yet,” Jennifer said. “I still had the drive to learn, to challenge myself, but in a good way. That was a push for me to change. And this is proof that after 20 years of being an ICU nurse, you can change.”

To support that learning and growth, AHN gives its LifeFlight nurses four education days per year that are packed with continuous learning opportunities.

“The education process here is pretty intense and really good, and that drew me in,” Geoff said. “I probably average about a hundred hours of continuing education every year. What we get far exceeds what is required of the licensure.”

You get autonomy to treat your patients

A typical flight with LifeFlight has a pilot and either two nurses or one nurse and a medic.

“We don't have the docs with us,” Geoff said. “We work off protocols. We're very autonomous in our care.”

“As a nurse, you're trained to make the recognition, know how to treat it, but then you have to talk to somebody. You have to get the orders. Here, we recognize it, we process it, we figure out the right path, and then we treat it all as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” he added.

It means even more when your leadership expresses that you have the ability to make those decisions.

“That’s one thing I've grown to love about flying here is our medical directors give us a lot of autonomy,” Brian said. “They say treat your patients the way they need to be treated.” Every day is different For LifeFlight nurses, the diversity of the work and patient population in this role is unmatched.

“We take care of everyone from a literal newborn to a hundred plus years old, and it's everything in between,” Geoff said. “The critical level of the patients here at LifeFlight is significantly higher than I had experienced before. We service bigger hospitals that are transferring into AGH primarily. It is a whole different dynamic of patient care that I hadn't realized.”

Not only do you get to be challenged by the work, but “You meet so many people,” Jennifer said. “You never know whose life you're going to change that day.”

Supportive and nurturing culture

At Allegheny Health Network, you will have the support you need to be successful in your job as a LifeFlight nurse.

“It doesn't even feel like a job most days,” said Mat. “It's just a very positive work environment. You can rely on your peers.”

Leadership plays a role in that support as well.

“They’re checking in on me before I even have an opportunity to check in on myself,” said Geoff.

Support here also comes at a personal level. It’s also not always about your life at work, but your life at home is important as well.

“LifeFlight is very family oriented,” Geoff said. “The management team and my peers, they know my wife, they know my kids. They know how many kids I have. If there's something going on, they’ll check on us, and that’s not the culture of all flight programs.”

Being a registered nurse on the LifeFlight team is truly the whole package.

“I love being able to think for myself and being able to treat my patients the way I think they should be treated,” Brian said. “And I love the fact that our medical directors trust us with treating our patients. I love being able to do all these extra things outside of the hospital that I can't do inside of the hospital.”

“I just love flying around in general and the wide variety of patients that you see each shift,” he added. “Nothing ever gets stale. Nothing ever gets boring. You never know what you're flying into. And I love all of that.”

If you’re still not sure if this is the right step in your nursing career, we offer a great opportunity to shadow our LifeFlight team for a day.

“Spend the shift with us!” Jennifer said. “Ask us your questions, get a notebook and write everything you would want to know. Even the nitty gritty. Just ask us!”

Join us today!