Any US-RNs successfully get a job in Canada?

Published Mar 30, 2016

4 Posts

Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

Hi guys, I'm new here, but have been reading lots of posts for a while on this topic, but rarely see any situation that matches mine or that is recent enough. I am curious if any US-EDUCATED RNs with a BSN have successfully immigrated to Canada RECENTLY, in the past 2 years since NNAS started evaluating nursing credentials. I keep seeing a LOT of foreign nurses being deemed non-comparable in education to Canadian nurses via NNAS, however, all of them were either from the Phillipines, Jamaica or India. I have yet to see any US nurse post experience with this process. I was hoping to see some good news from a US nurse who might not have had such roadblocks.

I attended an ADN program here in the States and then bridged to my BSN at the University of Maryland. I have 6 years of experience working in psychiatric nursing, both inpatient and outpatient, and am ANCC board certified in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing (I am an RN-BC after sitting the ANCC psych nursing exam).

Do US BSN nurses have an easier time at this process than some other countries? My husband and I are in process of doing all of the legwork. My NNAS stuff is in transit, WES is in transit, taking the IELTS this weekend, etc. I'm just eager to have some insight into the process between our 2 border nations, b/c I'm getting very discouraged about this, especially given how much money we have invested thus far into this process.

Also, any insight on getting a job, b/c I've seen a lot of people saying that w/o Canadian work experience, you can't get a job, but how do you get a job w/o Canadian experience as an immigrant? I'm just hoping that b/c my nursing specialty is one that is usually in high demand (and I have so much varied experience) that perhaps I will have a leg up on some other candidates. However, I would like to be practical and not delude myself that my American education is a free pass to making this process less of a headache. I would appreciate any advice, experience, or stories about US nurses coming to Canada. We are hoping to immigrate there within the year (if this process can go that quickly), and to eventually become citizens. We are planning to move to Vancouver, BC. Of note, I am already familiar with nursevancouver.com and the CIC process. Thanx!