taking nclex without taking CRNE?

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Sep 21, 2007

According to the California Board of Nursing web site it is possible to write the NCLEX without having already passed the CRNE:

-quoted from the website regarding Licensure by Examination

"IN ADDITION FOR INTERNATIONAL GRADUATES:

A. Send Breakdown of Educational Program for International Nursing Programs form to your school with the Request for Transcript form. Also provide the Certified English Translation form to your certified translator if your transcript is not in English. (See Supplemental Application Instructions for International Graduates.)

B. Submit a copy of your license or diploma that allows you to practice professional nursing in the country where you were educated. If you do not hold a license, a written explanation is required. Also, provide copies of your certificates for midwifery and psychiatric nursing, if applicable."

I don't know what other states will accept.

Keep in mind that if you ever wish to return to Canada and work, you will have to write the CRNE. No way around it. Period. Another thing to remember is that there is more to taking a job in the US than the NCLEX. You'll need the CGFNS and a TN visa among other things. Obtaining all the documentation and clearances for making the big move will take some time. Suzanne4 has the 411 on all of this.

student456 · Sep 21, 2007

okkk it says on the CGFNS website that in order to take it you have to have completed classroom time and clinical time in

medsurg

maternal health

peds

psych or mental health

whats the deal if your school doesnt have maternal health or peds clinical (mine doesnt unless you count 4 weeks of a community health nursing class as maternal health) we dont have any clinical in peds or maternal unless you are randomly placed in those clinical areas (and most students are not!) i have a psych (part of communith health nursing clinical in an eating disorder community environment) and a med surg clincial plus class time

so does this mean that i cannot move to the States until i find some program thatll let me do these clincials? Or is it only certain states that require this?

man i never knew this would be so complicated well at least i have a a year and a half to sort this out!

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Sep 21, 2007

And the powers-that-be are telling us that we're turning out better educated nurses these days! Ha. My diploma program included eight week modules of medicine, surgery, psych, maternity and peds, and that meant six weeks of clinical placement in each area in addition to the classroom stuff.

I can't answer that question. Maybe Suzanne will weigh in.

Silverdragon102, BSN · Sep 21, 2007

A lot of states do not require local boards hence a lot of Philippine nurses don't take it just apply straight to the BONs for licensure. The only way you can find out to whether you are short of hours is get CES done with CGFNS and if you are short of hours in certain areas you will have to make them up before you will meet requirements for US. Many students in the UK are having this problem as training is very much specialised and not general. A couple of universities have noticed this demand and recently started doing catch up courses for a fee to the ones that need to make hours up. Do you not have anything in Canada offering similar thing. Another option could be approaching nursing schools in the US and see if you can guest spot on any courses where you need to make hours up.

Good luck and hope this helps

student456 · Sep 21, 2007

And the powers-that-be are telling us that we're turning out better educated nurses these days! Ha. My diploma program included eight week modules of medicine, surgery, psych, maternity and peds, and that meant six weeks of clinical placement in each area in addition to the classroom stuff.
I can't answer that question. Maybe Suzanne will weigh in.

Yea, I agree janfrn...ALOT of people in my nursing program complain about it. Im in a very large university thats recognized for their nursing program and hands on training (my university have over 15 thousand registered students) and we dont get peds or mental health clinicals unless we randomly get placed at a children's hospital or in our last year (most people get med surg clinical for 4th year though). I wish we had all the areas that you guys do! We do LTC in year 1, med surg/acute care in year 2, year 3 is ALL community health nursing for the entire year and year 4 is usually some type of med surg or other floor if we are lucky to be placed there. We usually dont have a choice of where we go since the nursing dept. decides for us. Other than that i like my school and think its very good in education...i just wish we had more varied clinical! For example: ill have to learn from scratch if i want to go in ob/gyn since we dont have any classes on that unless you count what is generally covered in anatomy/physiology or 1 chapter in our assessment book. ive heard that they used to train nurses better back in the day (from several nurses in face)

but then i hear its similar in other Schools across Canada usually so i dont feel so bad!

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Sep 21, 2007

I think it's a terrible shame that all the "nursing" education has been taken out of nursing education. When a person can graduate from a four year degree program in nursing and never have seen a baby being born, much less learn how it all happens, something's been lost. Or when the same person can graduate without ever spending time with someone struggling with mental illness in order to learn how to interact with them, it creates a void for their later career experience that will never be filled. No one can tell me that a public health nurse will never have to 'manage' a schizophrenic person in the course of a career, or that a nurse in a rural setting won't have to deliver a baby on her own in the middle of the night because the mom has shown up at the hospital with a crowning babe. Shouldn't we be teaching nursing students at least the basics of these areas? And peds seems to be at least as neglected in the push to crank out med-surg nurses. Do children not suffer from serious illness? The 789 kids we admitted to our PICU last year would suggest they do! I see all of this as just another short-sighted decision made by government and professional regulatory bodies that will have a damaging impact on nursing in Canada sooner, rather than later.

Silverdragon102, BSN · Sep 21, 2007

I too think it is a shame that students do not get a good overall vue of nursing. I remember one night I had an elderly dementia patient acting up (bless was very confused because he was out of his normal enviorment), another patient well know for mental health issues but admitted with medical problems and a patient getting urgent psych review because he had tried to hang himself on the ward whilst high on whatever drugs he had taken. To say the ward was bedlam was putting it mildly and the poor psych consultant must have thought he was in the twilight zone because of all the going ones and because my training involved spending time in mental health I felt fully able to cope whereas someone having no experience in that environment even as a student would have struggled. Another situation I recall was a patient on psych ward due to unstable but required a surgical nurse to go over twice a day to change dressings because the nurses on duty refused to do it because it was not a skill they used and had no training. I honestly feel that you can not just train in one area as always something will cross over ie mental health patient having babies, suicide patient needing both surgical as well as mental health care.

I sometimes feel that the UK has gone this route to try and stop nurses from moving abroad

fenders · May 10, 2008

Janfrn,

I also agree that we don't se as much clinical as you did in your diploma days. however Things have changed since you got your diploma. Everything is evidence based now. The only way nursing practice can change is through the education system and not in the practice as there is too much resistence to change int he practice itself.

I get tired when i hear people complaining back and forth well degree is better/diploma is better. Ideally both would be perfect. So it'e up to the diploma nurses to work together and teach the degrees about your clinical skills and the degrees can teach you the research.

There have been numerous changes in the what we do things. When I was a degree nurse I noticed quite a few of the changes that havn't changed in practice.

everything you learn (skills) you will learn when you start working anyways and even then it takes several years.

Please don't go comparing and just work together with everyone. I've worked in other areas before (mechanic, computers, cook, sales etc) I couldn't beleive how katty nursing was once I got into it as a male. I saw alot of nurses eating their own young, pretty sad as the physiotherpay/ot/other groups treat each other with a great deal of respect. This is what we have to change.

What i have learned is that when i get a student, I don't care what school or degree they have i will treat them all equally and ensure a positive learning environment for them.

peace

Gman:cry:

Silverdragon102, BSN · May 10, 2008

We get the same in the UK forum but there are some things taught the old way which was good and is missed now. On a few occasions I have had 3rd students come to the ward and they didn't know how to take blood pressure or even know what was norm and abnormal, now I am sorry but that is appalling and shouldn't happen. Yes there is both good and bad in both old and new ways of teaching, just a shame things can't be combined and make one good way

elkpark · May 10, 2008

We get the same in the UK forum but there are some things taught the old way which was good and is missed now. On a few occasions I have had 3rd students come to the ward and they didn't know how to take blood pressure or even know what was norm and abnormal, now I am sorry but that is appalling and shouldn't happen. Yes there is both good and bad in both old and new ways of teaching, just a shame things can't be combined and make one good way

I agree completely -- we have the same situation in nuring education in the US.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · May 11, 2008

fenders, are you suggesting that diploma-trained nurses can't integrate evidence-based practice into their own practice? Or that their learning stops when they graduate? Not so. I have an office filled with nursing research and nursing resources; I just spent 8 days and more than $2000 of my own money to attend the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses National Teaching Institute. I take what I learn back to my unit and spread it around. And speaking of my unit, when I look at the nurse at the next bedside, if they were hired before I was I have no idea what kind of educational preparation they received. We all do the same job, some of us do it better than others, but at the end of the day, I can't tell who has a degree and who doesn't. My point was that the nursing education programs have to find a way to keep the "nursing" in nursing education, because being able to write a perfect APA format paper on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs isn't going to help me when my patient tamponades, bleeds into his head or has a tension pneumothorax. Nor am I going to be mentally calling up statistics on cardiac tamponade while I'm bolusing and starting CPR. Yes it's good to know the 'whys and wherefores', but we still need to learn the 'how'. Now please let's all just get along!