Air Force Nursing

[piinklovesnursing]

Hello,

I'm 20 years old and I'm currently a healthcare technician at a hospital but i want to become a RN in the air force. Can someone explain what steps I need to take to do this? After I enlist, can i pick where i can go to school? While going to school, what can i work as? Are there healthcare tech positions in the air force? How is the training? Is it true you have to go thru inspections and be yelled at? What are the chances of being deployed?? Thanks

[laneyg]

I don't know if enlisting first and then attempting to be an RN is the path you want to take to do this. The Air Force requires that you have a Bachelors of Science in Nursing to be employed as a nurse and most people obtain this degree before you actually get in contact with a recruiter. Your pathway would be: go to school, get accepted into a Bachelors of Science in Nursing program, contact an Air Force Healthcare recruiter about a year before your scheduled graduation and go from there. If you need the Air Force to pay for your schooling you can enlist first and they have certain programs for enlisted members to get a Bachelors degree but I wouldn't put all of my eggs in that basket if you want to be a nurse. You have to serve your time first before you would be considered for something like that. I can't answer many questions about that process but a search of the forums may answer that or someone else may reply with more information. Having inspections and being yelled at I wouldn't say is likely and deployment is always a possibility. There is no right answer on chances of being deployed you just need to accept that you could deploy and be willing to do that.

[just_cause, BSN, RN]

start by reading pre-existing forum comments here is my advice.

Lots of good questions / dialogue already listed. Seems to work best by reading those and posting additional questions to the tail end of those to keep an ongoing conversation rather then individual questions starting from scratch.

As previous poster was eluding to be an RN you should go get your BSN... most direct route is doing this w/o the military.. then joining after you have your BSN. Any option other then that is a far less direct route.. except some of the nurse candidate programs (army and navy) but you still need to be IN a BSN program to get it. ROTC is an option.. but each has its merits.

[CRF250Xpert]

college first - military later. Join ROTC though and have your future employer pay for some school.