Army Medic to Nurse? Anyone have experience?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello,

I'm currently a Flight Medic in the Army. I have 7 years experience as a Medic. I hold a ton of certifications to include EMT, I have several years of combat experience as well as hospital experience in Family Practice, ER and Physical Exams. I have been flying for 6months and will deploy as a flight medic shortly. My understanding is Medics hold more experience and credentialing than actual LVNs. I am seperating after this deployment and seeking to obtain my LVN for civilian employment. Anyone have any experience with this sort of transition?

Specializes in Cardiac/ED.

Help with what? as in what is your question or are you asking about LVN training? It sounds like you need to be an RN and will be bored to death with anything less. P2

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I need help with trying to decipher the training and skills that I have obtained throughout the past 9 years and see where it could fit in with accomplishing the goal in which I am looking toward. I understand that there is theory that comes with the programs out there, and why we don't just get to walk into a program and "poof" I'm a nurse, but something has to be said for the skills and training I have received over the years. One reason in particular; one day I had to give mock code because I was the only Basic Life Support/Advanced Cardiac Life Support instructor in our radius. After the code was done, I give after action review and got scoffed at because I was not an RN by some of the folk who were. My boss the Head nurse told me not to worry about it and that they were upset because a "medic" gave them a course health care practitioners should have been giving them, or so they felt. I believe that my time as a medic in the military should count for something, because I am constantly receiving some form of training day in and out. You like most others I have had this conversation with may not feel the same way.

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Specializes in ED, Flight.

Ditto to WSH-RN. You army guys should go for an RN with what you've already learned and done.

I was an infantry medic in the IDF; after that a street medic and flight medic (FP-C) here in the US. Nursing school was no big deal, even though there were plenty of new things to learn. Go for the ADN or BSN, IMO. Also, as an RN or higher you'll have options if you ever find you want to go back to the military - active or reserve. My Chief Flight Nurse is back in the military fulltime, in Bagdad, after spending several years as a civilian.

Go for it!

Thank you for your service! :yeah:

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Specializes in Cardiac/ED.

Well, I actually do understand as I was a Super B as an E4 and thus had more training than most of the NCO's that I worked for. I was often put in charge of the "my" ED at Fort McClellan Alabama as I had more training and experience then the NCO's that I was working with. This often led to conflicts as some had trouble understanding that I was in charge of patient care. I tell nurses that I work with that kind of look down on me as I have only been a RN for about 9 months about having to go through goat lab at fort sam and just look dumbfounded as they realize not to judge a book by its cover.

I will tell you however that nursing is very unique. I breazed through the first year but the second was a bit of a challenge and led to many late night test prep sessions. My experience was invaluable when it came to actual hands on patient care. The patients always think that I have been a nurse for a long time...its the confidence in you interactions (careful not to be cocky) that will give you a supreme edge.

As far as your military training and education, I found that it wasn't worth much as far as credit for or towards nursing. I did have my education evaluated and received college credit for it but as you will realize most of the nursing education is based on pre-reqs. What I mean by that is that they wont tell you that you need the credit but that you need the class in order to satisify the requirments to advance into the next class. I know it sucks but the only place that you can get the credit is towards an LVN license and trust me when I tell you that if you go that route that you will be extremely bored as it may not get you doing what you want as it sounds like you probably should be looking at either ED or ICU. I currently work as an Cardiovasc interventional RN and recently took to being charge nurse looking for more of a challenge. (yes charge after only 9months but that is what you will be looking for as well)

Your experience will definately help you land the job that you want...you did not say where you want to work but out here in Cali it is getting tougher to find jobs in the northern Cal region as there are tons of schools pumping out nurses. I actually took my ACLS while on spring break from RN school just trying to give myself and advantage for the job hunt and my manager told me that is what put my app on top. I was lucky as I was hired before graduation, its nice to know that a job is waiting for you as I did not work during nursing school.

If you are however looking for the quick get to work fast track read my earlier post on challenging the boards. I know that all states are different but I believe all of them have some form of challenging the LVN boards.

If you have any other questions feel free to email me through this website as it seems you and I are very similar in regards to our background and good luck to you.

1986-90 2nd General Hospital Landstuhl Germany Ambulance/ER EMT MOS 91A

90-92 Fort McClellan Alabama Noble Army Hospital ER MOS 91B10Y100 (school trained Advanced medic)

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