Become a Nurse without Nursing School

ajmclean · Jul 4, 2015

i am from california. California allows military corpsmen, who can show they have the required hospital experience and training, to challenge their lvn boards.
I don't know about the other services but when one is discharged from the army you can get a transcript for recommended college credit you should receive for military training.
https://www.otc.edu/documents_veterans_affairs/aarts_transcript_instructions.pdf
certain colleges and universities who are designated servicemen's opportunity schools will accept all of these credits and put them on their transcript for the veteran. My aarts transcript recommended a total of 83 college credits for training i received in the army. In subjects from a&p (10 semester credits recommended) to marksmanship (2 credits).
I chose to get my rn at one of these colleges. To this day i have never taken and a&p class in school, but that is not to say i didn't learn a&p. It just wasn't in a college and my a&p was taught by an army officer physician who was a vascular surgeon and who also had a phd in physiology. In stead of 4 hours of class time a week for 2 semesters, we spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for six weeks learning a&p. We had an animal dissection lab, a microbiology lab, and a cadaver lab.
When i went for my associates degree i had to take psychology, sociology, developmental psychology (human grown and development), microbiology (program required 4 credits and my aarts transcript only granted me 2 credits), chemistry, algebra and english. A total of 23 credits. I earned 16 of them in one afternoon sitting in the program counselors office taking clep tests. There was no clep for micro, and i failed the clep for english. The college gave lpns credit for the whole first year of their nursing program and allowed lpns to enter the second year of the program. I took the program's 3rd semester nursing classes and microbiology in my first semester, and the programs 4th semester nursing classes and english the second semester.
Ended up being a total of 36 college credits i earned actually taking classes. I got out of the army in july, challenged the lvn boards in early august, applied and was accepted to the lpn to rn program at the community college and started classes on august 24th.
I graduated after 2 semesters, a total of 9 months, including a month off for the holidays. By june, 11 months after getting out of the army, i was an rn in an intensive critical care nurse residency program designed to train new grads to be icu nurses.
It's my claim to fame. You will never meet an rn who spend less time and money on their license than i did. Assuming you don't count the 5 years i was a medic in the army, but i was getting paid pretty well for that and having fun. The lpn to adn program cost $2,600 and that was way more than covered by my gi bill.

thanks for your service!

ajmclean · Jul 4, 2015

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?)

I'm not sure what accelerated programs you have looked at, or where you reside, but Keiser University in Florida is great. They have 12 campuses and it's 16 months straight through.

As for bogus requirements, please clarify. I had a lot of my military and other college credits accepted for Keiser. I needed 5 more prereqs and did those in 4 months. A&P I&II, Micro, Human Growth & Development, American Lit. Each class was 4 weeks instead of a full semester. So if you want accelerated, check out Keiser.

The days of challenging (RN, Paramedic) are pretty much over. And if you got your RN overseas, you'd still need to apply for acceptance of your RN and take the NCLEX.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Jul 4, 2015

it is never sarcoidosis.
ETA......
OMG AN. I intentionally put that in all caps. You're messing with my mojo over here.

I am assuming you mean sarcoidosis is never the MAIN dx?

ixchel · Jul 4, 2015

I am assuming you mean sarcoidosis is never the MAIN dx?

I think the only reason they ever brought that one up was to hear Chase's accent when he said it.

nurse4ever08 · Jul 6, 2015

I am from California. California allows military corpsmen, who can show they have the required hospital experience and training, to challenge their LVN boards.
I don't know about the other services but when one is discharged from the army you can get a transcript for recommended college credit you should receive for military training.
https://www.otc.edu/Documents_Veterans_Affairs/AARTS_transcript_instructions.pdf
Certain colleges and universities who are designated servicemen's opportunity schools will accept all of these credits and put them on their transcript for the veteran. My AARTS transcript recommended a total of 83 college credits for training I received in the army. In subjects from A&P (10 semester credits recommended) to marksmanship (2 credits).
I chose to get my RN at one of these colleges. To this day I have never taken and A&P class in school, but that is not to say I didn't learn A&P. It just wasn't in a college and my A&P was taught by an army officer physician who was a vascular surgeon and who also had a PhD in physiology. In stead of 4 hours of class time a week for 2 semesters, we spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for six weeks learning A&P. We had an animal dissection lab, a microbiology lab, and a cadaver lab.
When I went for my associates degree I had to take Psychology, Sociology, developmental psychology (human grown and development), Microbiology (program required 4 credits and my AARTS transcript only granted me 2 credits), Chemistry, algebra and English. A total of 23 credits. I earned 16 of them in one afternoon sitting in the program counselors office taking CLEP tests. There was no CLEP for micro, and I failed the CLEP for English. The college gave LPNs credit for the whole first year of their nursing program and allowed LPNs to enter the second year of the program. I took the program's 3rd semester nursing classes and microbiology in MY first semester, and the programs 4th semester nursing classes and English the second semester.
Ended up being a total of 36 college credits I earned actually taking classes. I got out of the army in July, challenged the LVN boards in early August, applied and was accepted to the LPN to RN program at the community college and started classes on August 24th.
I graduated after 2 semesters, a total of 9 months, including a month off for the holidays. By June, 11 months after getting out of the army, I was an RN in an intensive critical care nurse residency program designed to train new grads to be ICU nurses.
It's my claim to fame. You will never meet an RN who spend less time and money on their license than I did. Assuming you don't count the 5 years I was a medic in the army, but I was getting paid pretty well for that and having fun. The LPN to ADN program cost $2,600 and that was WAY more than covered by my GI Bill.

You still had some formal training with a professional in a classroom with labs.

HHC, BSN, CMSRN · Jul 12, 2015

Really can't stand when someone thinks that you can just blink and become a nurse. This notion that little to no education is needed to become a professional nurse, is in my opinion, absurd. We never stop learning. If you want to become a nurse, then you have to go through the proper school and training. We are dealing with peoples lives here. I had a friend ask the other day if I had to go to school to become a nurse. I then proceeded to educate this person about our rigorous schooling and training. If anything we need more education, not become less educated. In nursing you have a didactic portion (books and lots of information to learn), and then a practical portion. This last one being the equivalent to an "apprenticeship". If you are looking for an easy way into nursing, then forget about it. We want more educated nurses taking care of you sick, not the opposite.

PMFB-RN, RN · Jul 21, 2015

You still had some formal training with a professional in a classroom with labs.

Yes exactly! That is why it is so shocking to me that so many schools will not recognize this training. If I had crossed the river and gone to nursing school in Minnesota I would have received zero credit for that training and been forced to take 8 credits of A&P through a college. Of course that is exactly why I chose a Wisconsin school despite living in California at the time.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Jul 21, 2015

This OP had exactly one post, a month ago.....and hasn't been seen since.

Drive-by pot stirring

Conqueror+, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2015

And maybe they felt so jumped on they disappeared.