Become a Nurse without Nursing School

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Anyone know of any opportunities abroad to become a nurse thru apprenticeship rather than thru traditional education?

(I'm fed up with looking for accelerated programs, having to meet bogus requirements, etc. I'd rather just do on-the-job training for 3/4 the pay in some other country. Anyone know of anything like this?)

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

Just stay at a Holiday Inn Express, OP.

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To assume you can go learn by hands on experience only and not have to take ANY classes is completely asinine. My husband is an electrician and he had to take 2 years of classes, plus complete a 5 year apprenticeship.

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Just stay at a Holiday Inn Express, OP.

No you did NOT :)

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg.

edit, misposted

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg.
My husband is an electrician and he had to take 2 years of classes, plus complete a 5 year apprenticeship.

It would be shocking if he had less training than that... :cool:

zing!

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It would be shocking if he had less training than that... :cool:

zing!

Ha ha ha :sarcastic:

Goof.

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Specializes in Hospice.

Nursing school teaches more than tasks. It teaches you to think like a nurse. You must understand disease process and what your patient with say.. heart failure is going to look like and what you need to be aware of. In order to do this you must understand pathophysiology. To understand this, you need a good foundation in anatomy, physiology, microbiology etc.

None of the classes that I took in school were bogus. I learned something from all of them. Nursing is one of the most respected professions. If you want to be a nurse, then do the work.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
I don't know if anyone has brought this up but I have worked with a few "diploma" nurses from back in the day and although they have been nurses for upwards of 40 years they still lack a lot of the fundamental understanding of physiology and rationales that I use at work every day. They are great, don't get me wrong, but there is a reason there aren't any more "work to nurse" programs. In California you basically can't get LVN jobs anymore so I'd imagine it would be impossible to get a job when all you have is a diploma.

I mi agree with everyone else if you think the classes are bs and you don't want to put the effort in now you absolutely should not be a nurse you will only be putting lives at risk.

I couldn't disagree more. Perhaps you've had a unique experience because I've never known diploma nurses to be anything but very well educated.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

I was "only a diploma nurse" and I just have to say that my hospital based nursing school was very intensive. At the time of my training, however, technology had not yet taken off and we did not have all the whistles and bells, so the machinery of this day and age are beyond my training.

HOWEVER, the basics of the body and how it works, "the fundamental physiology, and rationales" (Thessaly36) , anatomy, microbiology, pathophysiology, etc., for making assessments.....essentially is not changed.

When I was looking into going to nursing school I asked a lot of nurses about the different schools, interestingly enough, nobody recommended their school. But every one said the girls from __________School really know what they are doing! That's why i chose my school; if I was going to be a nurse, I, too, wanted to really know what I was doing.

I still remember the point in A&P when all the systems we had studied up to that point just began 'falling into place.' It was very, very exciting to me and really lit the fire inside me to learn more.

The point is, you can't know how well a nurse is grounded in the intricate knowledge that is required, just by looking at their place of education. I know people who went to really reputable programs and passed their boards, yet were lacking in the ability to 'connect' things, and yes, there were some lazy ones who just coasted through work on their degree alone.

I also know nurses who went to mediocre schools who were inspired enough to advance their knowledge, and were not 'hurt' by their school's limitations.

Just because someone is older and trained a good while ago doesn't mean they are clueless and lost in space. It just means they were trained a while ago. Doesn't mean that they haven't stayed caught up.

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Specializes in Hospice.

While I admit I am not up on all the "bells and whistles", it isn't because I trained almost 40 years ago.

I'm a Hospice nurse now, and all that new stuff is just interesting reading now and then, when I want to learn more about something I've heard Acute Care nurses discussing.

Nowadays, my area of expertise focuses around comfort and quality of life. And I couldn't be happier.

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Specializes in kids.

For real? I need a cold beer with that popcorn!

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I don't know if anyone has brought this up but I have worked with a few "diploma" nurses from back in the day and although they have been nurses for upwards of 40 years they still lack a lot of the fundamental understanding of physiology and rationales that I use at work every day. They are great, don't get me wrong, but there is a reason there aren't any more "work to nurse" programs. In California you basically can't get LVN jobs anymore so I'd imagine it would be impossible to get a job when all you have is a diploma.

I mi agree with everyone else if you think the classes are bs and you don't want to put the effort in now you absolutely should not be a nurse you will only be putting lives at risk.

As a proud graduate of a diploma program, I couldn't disagree with you more. My program was rigorous, and we were educated in depth on all aspects of patient care. It wasn't a "work to nurse" program. It was three years of intense training. When we graduated, we knew we were going to be able to succeed, no matter where we worked.

I don't know why you felt the need to disparage diploma graduates, nor do I understand the need for putting diploma in quotation marks. We are RNs just as much as ADNs and BSNs. My diploma education allowed me to work in quite a few areas, including management.

Educate yourself, lest you be thought a fool.

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