Want To Become A Navy Nurse

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Good Afternoon. I Am 21 y/o Female In College & It Is My Freshman Year. I Am Going For My BSN. I Am A CNA & I've Been One For 3 Years. My Future Career Goal Is To Become A Pediatrician or Pediatric Surgeon. During My High School Years I Was Skeptical About Joining Any Armed Force Because Of The Bad Things I Use To Hear Of. Anyway Now I'm Interesting In Joining The Navy Nurse. I Just Want More Information. But My Main Question Is I Have Been Doing My Research & A lot Of People Have Said That They Have Joined The Navy When They Were Still Going To School For Their BSN & Than Once They Graduate & Become Active Duty. Is That True.? I Want To Know More About That.. & Also What's The Difference Between A Navy Nurse & A Civilian Nurse.? & Most Of All I Want Someones Experience In The Navy Nurse..Pros & Cons. Give It To Me Straight No Cut Cards.

Thank You So MUCH:cool:

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

As a current AF nurse, I think it comes down to what you value in life. You are giving up certain freedoms that you probably take for granted as a civilian. Do you need to travel greater than ~300 miles on your off days (when you aren't taking vacation)? Are you going to have an issue working the occasional unpaid (you're a salaried employee) overtime shift? Is moving every 3-5 years and deploying 6 months out of every 3 years (varies depending on your specialty...could be more or less) going to bother you? Is dealing with a gigantic, slow bureaucracy going to be a deal-breaker (getting your flu shot twice because they don't have good records or filling out the same 29B form every vacation)?

However you are getting a lot of opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise get (travel, extra responsibilities, extra education). Your co-workers are generally incredible, type A, and driven. Your room for career advancement is far greater in the military. The money is decent (especially coming from the South as a civilian nurse) once you get to the O3 or O4 range.

Find some current and former active duty nurses and ask them their opinions. I like it, but I'm single without dependents. There are far more people that want to do military nursing than there are spots right now, and I think that says a lot. It's not for everyone, but it's great for certain kinds of people.

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

To answer your question about getting a BSN while on active duty: No you can't!*** There won't be time to complete your nursing school clinical rotations. There is tuition assistance of ~$4500 per year to help you take classes on active duty. But---even if you could get your BSN while on AD, you wouldn't instantly commission as a nurse. You'll still be medical technician. You would still have to apply and compete against other people for the officer slot. In the AF, 40% of the enlisted force has a bachelor's degree.

I know you've probably heard this a billion times, but I hope you're not using nursing as a backdoor into medical school. You'll end-up taking a lot of non-applicable classes in nursing school, and you'll still be 4-5 classes short of the minimum med school requirements. There are a lot more efficient routes to getting your MD than nursing. In fact, the military has programs to give you a stipend and pay your education if you get accepted into a medical school. I'm pretty sure the MD funding programs are a lot less competitive than the RN ones are right now.

Nursing in the military is extremely competitive. I think the AF and Navy still take limited numbers of new grads, but the Army is only taking experienced nurses. http://www.navy.com/locator/ or http://www.airforce.com/contact-us/recruiter-locator/ to find a healthcare recruiter.

***You could get it if you were accepted to an enlisted commissioning program. However, it may take years of enlisted service to be eligible for that program, and it's very competitive. They basically send you back to school full-time for free.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
My Future Career Goal Is To Become A Pediatrician or Pediatric Surgeon.

My first question is why aren't you doing a pre-med type of degree if you want to be in medicine? Nursing and medicine are different animals. Just a thought. :)

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As a current AF nurse, I think it comes down to what you value in life. You are giving up certain freedoms that you probably take for granted as a civilian. Do you need to travel greater than ~300 miles on your off days (when you aren't taking vacation)? Are you going to have an issue working the occasional unpaid (you're a salaried employee) overtime shift? Is moving every 3-5 years and deploying 6 months out of every 3 years (varies depending on your specialty...could be more or less) going to bother you? Is dealing with a gigantic, slow bureaucracy going to be a deal-breaker (getting your flu shot twice because they don't have good records or filling out the same 29B form every vacation)?

However you are getting a lot of opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise get (travel, extra responsibilities, extra education). Your co-workers are generally incredible, type A, and driven. Your room for career advancement is far greater in the military. The money is decent (especially coming from the South as a civilian nurse) once you get to the O3 or O4 range.

Find some current and former active duty nurses and ask them their opinions. I like it, but I'm single without dependents. There are far more people that want to do military nursing than there are spots right now, and I think that says a lot. It's not for everyone, but it's great for certain kinds of people.

I would advise that you talk to the Pre-Med advisors and make sure you take all the minimum coursework for Medical School while working on your BSN. Take your MCAT, etc.

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That's what I'm confused about.

I thought if I take my BSN that's the requirements of getting into the navy. Once I enter the navy they can pay for me to go to Medical School.?

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

Well, I guess that is true. However, any branch would be happy to pay for medical school without a BSN...as long as you have a bachelor's in something and get accepted to a civilian medical school. If you are fortunate enough to direct commission as a nurse without ROTC or RN experience (extremely competitive right now), you won't be able to even apply for the program to send you back to school for 2 years.

My point is that nursing is one of the hardest undergraduate degrees you can get. The required clinical hours (which are in addition to your lectures) alone make it a much more involved degree than say Biology.

Most nursing programs that I'm familiar with spend time teaching things like pharmacology and pathophysiology; those are NOT tested on the MCAT. Also, nursing generally doesn't include physics or organic chemistry; those ARE tested on the MCAT. You would have to take extra classes, and your grades probably won't be as good as if you had majored in bio. My concern is that your medical school profile won't be as strong as it could have been if you took an easier path; admission to even the worst med schools are cut-throat. I guess the RN experience would off-set that to a degree...I digress.

Yeah, you might end up being a better doctor after some nursing experience. However, it seems like an unnecessarily long route if you know you want to be an MD up front.

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Any way to speak to any current navy or air force nurse? I'm having a toss up between the two branches right now. Just read that the army isn't taking any new grads so that disqualifies me from the army ha.

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

I worked with Army nurses, but I've not yet worked with any Navy nurses. Military nursing is very similar no matter the branch. The small differences in uniform, culture, command structure, and opportunities for special assignments really aren't going to matter much to the average nurse in my opinion. You may really want to serve on a ship (Navy) or you might really want to do flight nursing (Air Force); those hard-to-get special assignments might tilt the scale on your decision.

The vast majority of military nurses work in either a base clinic or base hospital. Your patients are all service members, families of service members, or eligible veterans. Having worked the civilian side, I would say your patients are far less sick than those in a major civilian hospital.

For new grads, the biggest downside is the inability to easily switch specialties. The military likes to force new grads to do med surg or OB for their first 2-3 years. They make you go through a ~12 week training program that obligates you to serve extra years in order to switch specialties (after your first few years). If that doesn't suit you, then I'd do a year in a civilian job that you enjoy and apply afterwards.

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I'm actually okay with doing med surg for a couple years. I'm open to be a well rounded nurse. Eventually I would want to go into ER for a couple years and then do ICU possibly before getting my masters and heading up the ladder even more so. How do I go about figuring out which one is right for me? I feel if I got in, I would excel in either branch, I'm hard working and decently discipline (sometimes I don't get out of bed at 5am like I plan to).

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

Honestly, it's like splitting hairs differentiating between branches. The navy is chocolate ice cream and the air force is vanilla; they both taste good and are both still ice cream. Often, you serve along side nurses from the different branches in the same facility doing the same job. I'd apply to both and see what happens. Just don't tell your recruiters that you're doing it, because then they won't work as hard for you.

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Can I ask to visit different military hospital (I'd travel out of my own expense of course) to maybe get a first hand view of things?

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