Stop applying to the USA

Thank you Greenjungle!!!!!!!
I'm not from Philippines but I'm a foreign nursing student here, and people need to get it finally straight in their mind. There is no way to come here/stay here to work as a nurse and its going to be like that for a while and there is no way around that! I understand the hope and the struggles and all that, I came all from from central africa to study here, and not in the best conditions, but it feels like people have to answer over and over again the same questions in different versions and formats. Let us all get used to that and think about somewhere else if we can't live and work in our own countries, and focus on that...

Of course no one can tell another how to act. But I often time feel like I am telling a child that their is no Santa Claus for the first time when I post how nursing operates in the USA. It is a not a right to practice nursing, it is a honor to practice nursing, a double honor to practice it in a country that is not your native country. Also when I travel, I look to the residents of that area to tell me the local conditions, yet when Americans post here we are told that we are posting incorrect information. I know what I see every day.

Yes, there was a time a foreign nurses could come to the USA fairly easily, but also during this time US nursing school admissions where down, the US economy was strong, a nurse could get a job in one interview.

Since this time, Philippine nursing education has grown and not met the needs of US Health trends although I realize the traditional programs in the Philippines still give quality education.

What has changed, US Nursing education is very competitive, only the smartest and most diligent students get admitted to nursing programs. Once in the US programs are monitored yearly by the state, if the school doesn't have enough students passing the first time the school is closed to admissions. Students enrolled have to pass tests with an average greater than 75-80% and no mercy to students in grading.

Newly licensed nurses who are luck enough to find a program to hire them have intense orientation that can last up to a year. American health care is so complex, US schools have difficulty educating nurses to the rigorous standards of American Health Care. New students who graduate have student loans and parents who have worked very hard and have taken out loans to educate them. Most American nurses choose nursing because they love nursing, since American have had many choices of occupations most not as demanding as nursing. American nurses have learned to band together and use the political system to change nursing, something the nurses in the 1980's and 1990's have learned. Part of plan to increase nursing conditions is not to import nurses, historically foreign nurses are tolerant of poor nursing conditions.

I know this is painful for many to read, I would feel scammed if I was told by my parents, my government, and friends that if I attended nursing school this would open the door to the American Dream. Sorry, I feel it is disrespectful to post here how my government should have more favorable immigration programs while the economic situation changing for the worse every day. Or how the President elect should address your immigration issues instead of taking care of the Americans who elected him. Don't you realize we are the nurses you are aspiring to work with yet , you don't seem to realize that the USA is not the same USA that others have come to in previous years.

If you want to have a chance of working in the USA, ask your schools to teach nursing as it is practice in standards similar to the USA, Canada or UK. If no supplies are available at the hospital, the school should not send students. I fault my BON not screening the foreign applicants, something I need to address with the BON. Sorry in my opinion, if you are not exposed to clinical standards equal to the USA, you should not be given the right to practice in the USA.Perhaps the schools need to sign contracts and have the clinicals in the USA if the school's mission is to supply nurses to the USA. This would help benefit the USA

I guess my advice is apply to the USA once you know all the facts, realize it is a long shot like buying a lottery ticket. You course in nursing may be demanding, nursing students in the USA have difficulties and challenges of their own.

My last point, posters don't know how lucky they are to have people like Suzanne who share their lives experiences. What gain does she have posting here other than trying to help others?

I agree it's probably a good idea to look elsewhere for now, given the recession and retrogression.

HOWEVER I find some of the above comments rather ignorant. I am a foreign nurse. I'm not from the Phillipines, I'm from a first-world country with good opportunities. I'm here because I can contribute to the hospital that employs me, and I am gaining experience I perhaps could not get in my smaller country. I have no illusions about living here longterm or making a fortune. I am also studying both here and in my own country.

Keep in mind, "foreign nurses" also have some knowledge and diversity to contribute to the US, and it's not a one way street. Practices differ across the world, but you can't always assume the US knows best in everything - we can learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses.

What I find most fascinating is that everyone in this thread except me is a non-US born nurse, and only one thinks that others should be able to come here.

I don't think it's my business if people want to apply their butts off. Whether they are granted visas is up to the government we elect, not me, personally.

I agree that we can learn from one another, but when one's education is not equal to the health care system they are applying to their initial employment is a drain and potentially a life threatening situation. I agree the US doesn't know best, but it does know best about US Nursing.

How can you say other countries' education is "not equal" to the US? How do you know that? How are you measuring that? People from foreign countries are well scrutinized before being allowed to work in the US, including an assessment of the equivalency of their training, education and experience. Goodness me, how offensive!

I think there are two issues here.

The first is that is DOES get frustrating to see thread after thread asking the same questions about getting a work visa in the US when the retrogression has been mentioned over and over again, and it has been made plain that US nurses have first dibs on the jobs here. The nursing shortage isn't real. The desire not to pay nurses is.

The second issue is what I can only call the xenophobia of those who claim that nursing programs abroad are not as good as American ones. There is nothing to back that up except uninformed prejudice. I challenge those making these assertions to show me any peer-reviewed documentation that proves foreign-trained, particularly Phillipine, nurses are inferior. Not anecdotes, not op-ed pieces, but an evidence-based piece that satisfactorily proves it.

I disagree ( 50 % ) with Alexk49 .

It's only true if you're talking about IEN with no experience.
With experienced IEN , standard is much higher than local fresh graduate there.



I'm NOT from Philippines and I'm referring to ALL nationalities.