Can I become a nurse in California if I was convicted of child porn possession in the state?

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Let's say I was convicted of the charge and served my sentence but have to register as a sex offender for life. Can I still be a nurse if I have recommendation from a psychologist or other health professionals as evidence of rehabilitation?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Sex offender for life is going to keep you out of (at the bare minimum) pediatric clinicals during school- and thus you cannot graduate and thus you cannot be a nurse. 

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Specializes in Oceanfront Living.
On 11/21/2020 at 12:23 PM, chocolateocean said:

Let's say I was convicted of the charge and served my sentence but have to register as a sex offender for life. Can I still be a nurse if I have recommendation from a psychologist or other health professionals as evidence of rehabilitation?

Very, very unlikely.  Most sex offenders do not rehab well.

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Specializes in Occupational Health.

you will not be able to pass the required background checks. The short answer is "no"

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NO. 

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You should ask a lawyer. However, I doubt it. My school did a background check before we even started nursing school. I remember the lecture they gave us: “If you have certain felony convictions, we still may admit you to the program. However, the clinical sites will likely not accept you. You need to know this up front, because there is no way to graduate or be licensed without clinicals.”  If you were “lucky” enough to have ALL virtual clinicals because you were in an accelerated program for the 2020 calendar year... who knows. If you get any information from a lawyer, let us know, I’d be interested. 

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.

I would have a really hard time imagining, and a hard time understanding, if the answer was yes. In fact admittedly, I would hope the answer is no. But that means nothing - it is up to each individual school and state board to decide.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ICU.

Absolutely NOT. The recidivism rate is extremely high for pedophiles and a profession such as nursing wouldn't be tolerant of that.

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On 11/28/2020 at 9:05 PM, Serhilda said:

Absolutely NOT. The recidivism rate is extremely high for pedophiles and a profession such as nursing wouldn't be tolerant of that.

I'm not a pedophile. I was receiving Media from some friends in Australia and then the LAPD traced my IP address and arrested me. I wasn't into it. 

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5 hours ago, chocolateocean said:

I'm not a pedophile. I was receiving Media from some friends in Australia and then the LAPD traced my IP address and arrested me. I wasn't into it. 

Interesting and quite unfortunate. The Media you received from your friends was unsolicited? Best of luck in your endeavors. 

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Specializes in Dialysis.

You may graduate school and then be unable to take NCLEX, which the state evaluates on a case by case basis AFTER graduation. I would still likely think that the answer is no

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5 hours ago, Hoosier_RN said:

You may graduate school and then be unable to take NCLEX, which the state evaluates on a case by case basis AFTER graduation. I would still likely think that the answer is no

Operative word is may. As someone mentioned before, most if not all schools graduation is contingent upon completion of pediatric rotations. All schools I know run background checks on students and I’m thinking pedophilia ranks highly among the exclusion criteria. Nonetheless, there could be exceptions to the rule, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it. 

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