Army Nursing

Specialties Government

Published

Hello, I am a travel nurse with 2 years experience and I am currently working on my RN to BSN.I want to know if the Army is paying off student loans to nurses who join up? I will have almost 50k in student loans after I graduate. Is there a difference in repayment in active duty vs reserves? Also, if anyone knows, does the Army have a PMHNP program they put their nurses through? What are the stipulations/benefits of it?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Moved to the Government/Military forum

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Specializes in EMT, ER, Homehealth, OR.

You will need to contact a Healthcare Recruiter to get up to date information on available bonuses. Do not contact the local enlisted recruiter, some will try to get you to enlist versus getting your commission. When you contact them they are not fast getting back to you. While you are at it contact the Healthcare Recruiters for the Air Force and Navy to see which service would be the best fit for you.

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

The Air Force certainly offers graduate degree programs to currently active duty nurses in a variety of programs (NP, CRNA, CNS, CNM, management, and research to name a few). I believe all three branches offer some form of the same thing with some strings attached.

Typically, there is a competitive application process involved. There are also minimum requirements for applying. For example, the Air Force requires that you serve 2 years as a nurse in the Air Force before you can apply for any of the grad school programs (they are under the AFIT: Air Force Institute of Technology program). After graduation, you owe a certain number of years of service. It seems to be somewhere around 2:1; you would owe 4 years for a 2 year graduate degree I believe.

The AF's active duty program is nice because your cost of attendance is covered plus you collect you full salary. I'm not familiar with the reserve equivalent.

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Specializes in Oncology.

I second checking out the other branches to compare. I'm currently Navy and too far along to be interested in switching teams but I believe the Air Force offers some of the best educational benefits of all other branches. Good luck with whichever path you take.

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Agreed! I went through 3 recruiters before I found one that actually new what he was talking about. I had 2 different ARNG recruiters tell me that they don't even offer direct commissioning, which is completely false. Also, do research on your own so you have at least a basis of knowledge to go off of to protect yourself and make sure you get accurate information. Talk to multiple recruiters before you stick with one. Best of luck to you!

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