RN, BSN · 12+ Years Clinical Experience · 10 Years Travel Nursing
Hi — I'm Jayson Minagawa, BSN, RN. I've been a practicing registered nurse for more than 12 years, and I built The Nursing Directory because I was tired of watching fellow nurses get nickel-and-dimed by bad contracts, confusing pay stubs, and career advice written by people who've never actually sat in a nurse's station at 3 a.m.
My clinical background started in ICU and critical care — ventilators, vasopressors, rapid responses, and the split-second judgment calls that define high-acuity bedside nursing. From there I moved through inpatient psychiatric and behavioral health, then into correctional nursing inside a maximum-security facility — stab vest on, keys to nearly every door in the prison, and ready to respond to whatever alarm came over the radio. I've also worked in telehealth and triage, where I learned how to translate hands-on assessment skills into a virtual environment.
Ten years of travel nursing layered on top of all of that. That's ten years of decoding contracts line-by-line, chasing license endorsements across state lines, doing the math on whether a "competitive" pay package actually holds up after taxes and housing, and starting over in a new city with a new team every 13 weeks. I've run every one of the calculations on this site for my own paycheck — the overtime math under the 8/80 FLSA rule, the real value of a travel stipend after GSA caps, the ROI of a BSN bridge program, the true cost-of-living adjustment when a Texas job "pays more" than a California one. None of that was academic for me. It was my rent.
Today I serve as Unit Manager & MDS Coordinator at a 142-bed skilled nursing facility, and I still pick up travel contracts when I can. Every tool, guide, and calculator on this site is built from that working-nurse lens — not a marketing team, not an SEO farm, not a venture-backed "creator economy" play. The resources nurses actually need are usually either buried, outdated, or written by someone who's never worked a floor. That's the gap this site was built to fill.
"If a nurse can't use it on their phone during a 15-minute break, it doesn't belong on this site."
High-acuity bedside nursing — ventilators, vasopressors, rapid responses, and the kind of split-second decisions that define critical care.
Inpatient psych, crisis stabilization, and behavioral health across multiple settings and patient populations.
Remote patient care, triage, and clinical assessment — adapting bedside skills to a virtual environment.
Maximum-security facility nursing — stab vest on, keys to nearly every door, and ready to respond to whatever came over the radio.
10 years across the country — decoding contracts, chasing license endorsements, and starting over in a new city every 13 weeks.
Built the tools and resources nurses actually need — calculators, AI analyzers, licensing maps, and career tools. 100% free.
The Nursing Directory exists to give practicing nurses, nursing students, and career-changers a single place to find honest, accurate, working-nurse-built resources. No paywalls. No sponsored top-of-list rankings. No affiliate arrangements that dictate what we recommend.
Some external links on the site may be affiliate links (fully disclosed on our disclosure page), and we may eventually run modest display advertising to cover hosting and development — but no sponsor, advertiser, or affiliate partner has any influence over what we write, what we recommend, or how our calculators are built. If a product or employer is listed here, it's because we'd use it ourselves.
Educational purposes only. Every calculator, guide, quiz, and resource on The Nursing Directory is published for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing on this site constitutes medical advice, legal advice, financial advice, employment advice, or tax advice, and nothing here establishes a nurse-patient, attorney-client, or advisor-client relationship.
Verify everything. Pay calculators and contract analyzers are built around federal FLSA rules, publicly reported BLS wage data, and GSA per-diem tables — but your facility's HR department, your state's labor laws, your specific employment contract, and your individual tax situation may change the outcome. Always verify results with your payroll office, a licensed CPA, a licensed employment attorney, or your state board of nursing before making a decision that affects your paycheck, your license, or your clinical practice.
Clinical tools are not diagnostic. Any clinical reference tool, mnemonic, or decision-support content on this site is a study aid — not a substitute for facility policy, evidence-based guidelines, physician orders, or your own clinical judgment at the bedside.
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Every calculator, quiz, and resource on this site was built from real nursing experience — not a marketing team. Try them free.
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