US born, dual Canadian citizen with CA RN looking to move to Alberta Canada

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I was born in the US and have lived here my entire life, I hold dual citizenship in the US and Canada due to being a first generation American with a Canadian mother. I currently have a California RN license with a BSN. I am hoping to move to Lethbridge, Alberta and was wondering how my application for and taking the CRNE, licensing, and finding an RN job will differ from other IENs being that I have Canadian citizenship?

Also, not being familiar with the nursing climate in Canada, I was hoping to get more information, particularly about Alberta. I am moving there to be close to my mother but what I have read here and from my visits, leads me to believe that it is very different than nursing (and living for that matter) in the Bay Area of California.

I have read many posts about IENs but none with my circumstances of already having citizenship yet knowing nothing about the process as I have only visited Canada.

This is is the beginning of my country transfer recon :-) any information will be helpful!

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Makes no difference having citizenship. You will still be classed as a IEN because you trained outside of Canada. Have you checked to see what jobs are like because many nurses in AB post on issues, just check out the Canada forum

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You will be required to write the nursing exam. I live in Alberta and the requirements are crazy...

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You will be required to write the nursing exam. I live in Alberta and the requirements are crazy...

How are the requirements crazy? They are in place to ensure that any nurse educated outside of Canada has the same basic education as a nurse educated in any Canadian province. The taxpayer pays our wages and is entitled to safe, qualified nursing staff.

OP, you will be an IEN despite having Canadian Citizenship because you were educated in the US.

Lethbridge has a nursing programme, so you will be competing with locally educated nurses. Look in the Canadian Forum for threads on AHS.

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