ANC residency program

[nebnurse]

hello,

i have heard about the ANC residency program requiring every new nurse to go through it to get precepted into army nursing. however my recruiter told me this is still in its infancy and will not apply to me. is this true? can anybody please clarify this for me? also, i understand that it is required to have two years of med/surg prior to the critical care course guarantee, is this true? what if they stick me in a clinic? will this count towards my 1-2 yrs experience? i am only interested in being an ICU nurse and i really do not even want to be on med/surg let alone the clinics. i just want to know exactly what the deal is so i know what to expect going on.

thanks everyone for your help!

-ben

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

Do you have any nursing expericene or are you a new grad? I believe that it is after 1 year of RN experience you can apply for the critical care course. If you are a new grad you will more then likely be in a hospital not a clinic.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

my recruiter informed me that new grads need at least 1 year medical surgical nursing experience before being allowed into critical care or emergency nursing areas on active duty. the positive is sometimes you can sign up and have a guarantee that you will move into the area of your choice. that is much better then working medical surgical in the civilian world, where there is no guarantee that one will ever transfer or move into the specialty of his/her choice.

btw, medical surgical nursing is not bad... you gain a lot of skills and experience that you will apply in the icu or er setting. the only problem with medical surgical nursing in the civilian world is that many floors are poorly run. this is not the case in the army. besides, m/s nurses get icu patients all the time either as step-down or as patients whose conditions changes for the worse. the only difference is that we do not apply cc nursing interventions.