BC RN to Washington State

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Hi there,

I am an RN in BC looking to move down to Washington state to be with my partner. I've read through a recent thread regarding moving to Seattle from Vancouver, but was hoping to find some more perspectives. If anyone here able to share their experience obtaining a WA state licence, finding employment, or overall differences in practice/culture between the two healthcare systems, I would greatly appreciate it! I would also value any thoughts or input from WA RNs who have worked with Canadian RNs.

Thank you ?

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You probably saw my thread before, but I'll share some more info. To get a WA License you need to prove your education equivalency using CGFNS. CGFNS is $300+ and takes time, took me a few months to get things in order. Once you have that, getting the WA RN license is easy. Getting a work visa is another question however, I came in on a TN.

Finding employment was not difficult for me. I previously worked for BC Cancer Agency, so Oncology nurses were in high demand no matter where you go. I basically went down for interviews, accepted a job offer, and a few days before I started work I drove to the border and got my TN visa.

Practice/culture: Drug names are different. Sometimes the utilized drugs are different too. I want to say that Canada uses the "cheaper" drugs, while in the US, doctors prescribe more expensive drugs, because $$ and insurance pays for it. I also had to learn to bill for my services, ie, bill for how long patient's infusion is, bill for what drugs I pushed, bill for dressing change, etc. Crazyness. Furthermore, things get done a lot quicker here.... Primary care doctor at some outpatient clinic orders an MRI, a few days for insurance to approve it, and voila, MRI is scheduled next week. In Canada, unless a patient was in-patient at a hospital, no way they'd get MRI that fast.

I get paid a lot more $$ here, and am not stuck working for a single medical/hospital network (closest equivalency to BC's health authorities?). Your pay scale is based off years of experience ANYWHERE, not seniority in the same health authority.

Hope that helps.

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Hi Gswords,

Your posts on previous topics have been very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate and answer my questions! My practice is currently based in post-op cardiac surgery, and it seems like there's demand for cardiac nurses, or at least med-surg with telemetry experience preferred. Would you say you are happier practicing in the US? Are there things you miss about the Canadian system?

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Hey @bigblondebun, did you end up moving to WA? I am currently in the same boat, waiting for my license to get approved.

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Hi @Kayycee, I'm still in BC at the moment, also waiting for my education to be verified and licence approved! I'm coming up on my 1 year mark as an RN and hoping to have around 1.5-2 years before I start applying to jobs down south.

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@bigblondebun That's great to hear! I'm just waiting to hear from the Nursing Commission at this point. I want to try and apply for a nurse residency program soon. We could be coworkers one day!

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Specializes in tele, stepdown/PCU, med/surg.

SF Bay is not representative of the US so it's hard to compare using that. Also WA is many wonderful places besides Seattle with a much lower housing cost. In fact, hospitals in Seattle will pay about the same as hospitals in another are of WA with a much lower cost-of-living!

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On 8/26/2019 at 7:42 PM, Kayycee said:

@bigblondebun That's great to hear! I'm just waiting to hear from the Nursing Commission at this point. I want to try and apply for a nurse residency program soon. We could be coworkers one day!

@Kayycee Hi! How has everything turned out for you? I am finally in your shoes, just waiting to hear back from the nursing commission. I'm hoping to hear soon back regarding a specialty residency program for my top choice hospital in Seattle!

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@bigblondebun Hey, I'm currently figuring out whether I should start my job orientation in November or December, but I did get a job offer for my top choice in Seattle. You should be hearing from the Nursing Commission soon. My status/application was officially in the Provider Credential Search as "pending" on September 5th, and my license was active on September 25th.

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12 hours ago, Kayycee said:

@bigblondebun Hey, I'm currently figuring out whether I should start my job orientation in November or December, but I did get a job offer for my top choice in Seattle. You should be hearing from the Nursing Commission soon. My status/application was officially in the Provider Credential Search as "pending" on September 5th, and my license was active on September 25th.

Congratulations! Good luck with the big move. Thanks for the heads up on the Nursing Commission processing times.

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