Army after BSN

[NurseAlley]

I graduated from UAHuntsville a year ago with a BSN and am currently working on an Ortho/Med-Surg floor. My husband and I just moved to Columbus, GA since he is a Army Ranger. I was thinking of joining as an Army Nurse but was curious of how it would be with training and deployments. Does the Army work to keep spouses together and do they deploy at the same time if both have to deploy? Also would I just be working as an RN on post until I was needed for deployment? Any information that you all can provide me would be greatly appreciated.

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

The Army does try to keep dual military spouses together, but as you know, the needs of the Army come first. I know an RN who is married to another RN; they did station them in the same place, but he just came back from deployment in July and she just deployed last month.

When you're not deployed, it's likely you'd be working in an Army medical treatment facility (MTF, i.e., hospital) somewhere as a regular nurse doing the usual nurse stuff. :) There are other positions like Brigade Nurse, White House Nurse, etc., but those are special assignments.

Right now getting into the Army Nurse Corps is very competitive. Nurses are required to have two years of experience for Active Duty and 6 months for Reserves. At this time, there is one selection board per fiscal year, and it's coming up next week (packets were due this month). It sounds like you'll have the required two years by this time next year, so you might want to contact a healthcare recruiter now to chat, then to start working on your paperwork if you decide it do it -- it is a time-consuming process. You can find your closest healthcare (AMEDD) recruiter using this website: http://www.goarmy.com/locate-a-recruiter.html

Welcome to allnurses!! :)