When Sharina’s* husband moves to a new duty station, she packs her medical bag, and follows. Sometimes, she’s back to work at their new location long before he reports for his first day.

Currently stationed in Hawaii, Navy wife Sharina works as a nurse for a national paramedical company. She travels to private homes to give basic medical exams and draw blood for routine life insurance applications. She contracts with individual insurance companies and is able to continue working for them in most states her family moves to.

Not only is her job the ultimate in portability, Sharina enjoys a flexible schedule that she sets.

“It is completely based on your availability,” she said. “If you want to work eight hours a days, you do. If you want to work part time, you do.”

Sharina does not make an hourly rate but rather is paid a percentage of the cost of each exam she completes. Each insurance company pays a different rate, she said, therefore her daily take differs depending on the companies she works for that day.

She holds a two-year, health science degree in nursing and differs from a registered nurse because she didn’t sit for the state test to be certified as an R.N. She stopped short of taking the exam, Sharina said, because she decided to switch career gears. Currently she works full-time and is enrolled in a master’s program to earn a degree in psychology. She dreams of becoming a marriage counselor and eventually, a psychologist.

She said her work on the road as a nurse is helping to prepare her to lead counseling sessions.

“You’re kind of doing the same type of thing if you think about it – dealing with people, the psychology of people and what is behind people’s behavior,” she said.

Though Sharina will eventually leave her nursing position upon graduation, she said she plans on finding a way to carry her counseling career through each PCS move too.

“I’m not retiring any time soon,” she said.

*Last name omitted per interview subject’s request