Basic stuff for a newbie looking at moving from the UK to the USA

[pyoorkatherine]

Hi folks,

So I'm an emergency nurse in the UK civilly-partnered to an American citizen (we've been married for 5 years this October). We're hoping to move to the USA in around 2 years' time. Our plan, such as it is, is to see where the UK gay-marriage thing lands, and if that doesn't get sorted then to go visit her home state (Washington), get married there, and then come back here until we're ready to move.

As such I'm thinking that I can get a green-card as her partner, and all I should need then is the NCLEX exam.

Assuming I pass that, I'm thinking we could head over there and I shouldn't need anything else...although if I could get a job first, that'd be good!

Is my understanding of that right? Or am I missing something obvious?

My other question is this - I originally was planning to go over to Canada and had an awful time with the Canadian assessment of my training. I did a 3 year RN degree course (and have just completed a MSc in critical care on top) but my course did not include practical obstetrics, paediatrics or mental health. Although, during my training, I organised a short placement in a mental health unit and as part of my community module worked with a health visitor (community paeds), this was deemed substantially insufficient. Both the BC and NS nursing boards indicated I'd likely need to take extra courses (in Canada) to be allowed to register.

Obviously, working in the ED I've had a fair amount of contact with mental health and paediatric patients, and some (fairly limited) dealings with obstetrics, but that was not considered within the BC examination of my qualifications - NS in contrast did consider it and said that my mental health experience was sufficient, but paediatric and obstetrics was not.

Am I likely to run into the same problem in the USA? Because if so, I'd rather try and rectify it with some courses here before hand rather than wait and find out after spending painful sums of money (which is what happened in Canada!).

Thanks!

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Yes. Like Canada, US nurses are generalist trained. Work experience is not an acceptable substitute for the required classroom theory & clinical rotations in the required subjects of adult, pediatrics, psych/mental health, geriatrics, and obstetrics/maternal-child. In order to get an application for licensing by examination approved by a US board of nursing so that you may sit for the NCLEX, you must meet the minimum educational requirements of a generalist trained nurse.