20 Years of Care: Meet Ashley, a Cath Lab Tech Who Found More Than a Career Through Travel

For FlexCare’s 20th anniversary, we’re celebrating the clinicians, recruiters, partners and team members who have shaped our story through our 20 Years of Care series. 

For traveling Cath Lab Tech Ashley, that story spans nearly seven years with FlexCare, assignments across the country, countless adventures, a recruiter who became a close friend — and even meeting her future husband along the way. 

Taking the Leap Into Travel Healthcare 

Before becoming a traveler, Ashley spent three years working in her home cath lab in Michigan. She had gained valuable experience, but eventually reached a point where she was ready for something new. 

After taking her first major international trip to Ireland, she caught the travel bug. Combined with the opportunity to grow professionally and earn more, travel healthcare started to feel like the right next step. 

“I had learned everything I could learn there,” Ashley shared. “I started traveling partially for pay, but partially for the experience.” 

That decision would take her farther than she could have imagined. 

Over the past seven years, Ashley has worked across the country, with assignments taking her everywhere from Maine and North Carolina to Texas, Utah, Washington and California. Along the way, she’s experienced different hospitals, learned new approaches to patient care and rediscovered her love of the outdoors. 

Travel has also pushed her outside of the life she once pictured for herself. 

“I was very introverted. I was never going to leave Michigan,” Ashley said. “And now I’m like, I’ll probably never move back to Michigan. It’s hard, but you grow from it.” 

Finding FlexCare — and Staying 

Ashley heard about FlexCare while on her very first travel assignment in Austin, Texas. After talking with a fellow traveler who worked with FlexCare, she decided to give the company a try for her next assignment. 

Nearly seven years later, she’s still here. 

What started as finding another travel assignment became something much more meaningful: a sense of consistency and support as Ashley moved from one city to the next. 

Even during the uncertainty of COVID-19, when Cath Lab travel opportunities became extremely limited, Ashley remembers her first FlexCare recruiter checking in every week — even when there wasn't a contract to offer. 

It was a small gesture that made a lasting impression. 

Today, that same feeling of support continues through her relationship with her recruiter of nearly four years, Claudia. 

When Your Recruiter Becomes Your Friend 

After working together for almost four years, Ashley and Claudia’s relationship goes well beyond assignments, compliance and contracts. 

“We’re friends,” Ashley shared. “We talk about our dogs and our fiancés and all the things.” 

For Ashley, it’s the simple check-ins that make the biggest difference. Claudia doesn't only reach out when there’s an assignment available or something needs to get done. Sometimes, she’s simply checking to see how Ashley is doing. 

That relationship has remained a constant through assignments from coast to coast and some pretty significant life milestones. 

Claudia got married. They both added dogs to their families. Ashley got engaged. 

And, technically, Claudia helped Ashley land the assignment that led her to her future husband. 

An Assignment That Changed Everything 

While on assignment in Sacramento, Ashley decided to give online dating a try. That’s when she met the man who would eventually become her fiancé. 

After talking online, the two met in person and began dating. Just five months later, Ashley's travel career presented another big decision: her next assignment would take her across the country to North Carolina. 

So she asked him to come with her. 

He said yes. 

The two packed up and moved from California to North Carolina together, and he has been traveling alongside Ashley ever since. 

Now, they're preparing to get married in Washington — the state where Ashley completed one of her favorite assignments and a place she fell so deeply in love with that they chose it for their wedding despite neither of them currently living there. 

For Ashley, it's one of the best examples of what travel healthcare can open the door to. 

New hospitals and new skills are part of the experience, but so are the people, places and unexpected moments that can change your life. 

Coast to Coast, With One Constant 

Ashley has traveled from one side of the country to the other, but throughout the last four years, Claudia has been her constant. 

That consistency is also one of the biggest reasons Ashley continues choosing FlexCare. 

With FlexCare's Single Point of Contact model, Ashley can turn to Claudia for everything she needs instead of navigating multiple departments and contacts. 

“I only ever talk to Claudia,” Ashley explained. “You have a real relationship, and it doesn't feel so transactional.” 

That trust has mattered during the difficult moments, too. When Ashley was unexpectedly cut from one contract, she and Claudia worked together to get her into another assignment just two weeks later. 

After years of working together, there's an understanding between them: Ashley trusts Claudia to find the right opportunity, and Claudia knows Ashley will be ready when it comes. 

More Than an Assignment 

After seven years of traveling, Ashley has experienced more than she ever expected when she first decided to leave Michigan. 

She has learned new skills at hospitals across the country. She's rediscovered her love of hiking and the outdoors. She's built friendships in different states. She's lived in places she never expected to call home. 

And she met the person she's going to marry. 

Her advice to clinicians considering travel healthcare is simple: find a way to try it. 

“You learn new skills, and I've learned so much as a traveler that I would have never known if I had only stayed at my one hospital,” Ashley said. 

And when it comes to choosing an agency, the relationships matter just as much as the assignments. 

“You just feel so cared for at FlexCare,” she said. “They actually show genuine care.” 

For Ashley, nearly seven years with FlexCare have been about much more than contracts or destinations. They've been about having someone in her corner while she builds a career — and a life — that looks completely different from the one she once imagined. 

As FlexCare celebrates 20 years, Ashley's journey is a reminder of what 20 Years of Care is really about: the relationships that last long after an assignment ends and the people who make every mile of the journey meaningful.