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Discussion

Considering military...?

First, I'm sure there's a bajillion similar posts, so I'm sorry for the redundant post. I didn't see something that quite described what I was looking for.

I'm a registered nurse with BSN. Ideally, I'd like to work in pediatrics, or possibly something L&D, but I think any acute experience would be fantastic, just to get that experience with a little bit of everything.

If you wouldn't mind, I have some questions for people who have done the military nursing route, if you don't mind helping me out.

My list of questions:

What branch of military offers what? I'm afraid to contact a recruiter because I'm only vaguely looking for information, not wanting to sign up just yet. I have friends who are Army nurses, but they did the ROTC thing, so I think it's probably different.

Does anyone pay your loans if you already graduated? I kind of have a lot of debt :(

What service/active duty requirements do they usually have (ie 5 year contract, a certain number of time deployed)?

Do you usually find that your military experiences translate well to civilian work and give you good work experience?

Also, what do nurses do in the different branches, such as more field work compared to hospitals? I think either would be very interesting work, but I'd just want to know what I'm looking into.

Do you find that it's flexible or more difficult to change? For example, would an ICU nurse be stuck in ICU, or would they be willing to put you somewhere else if you wanted to?

Are people generally supportive of new nurses? I'm absolutely willing to learn, I just need people to teach me.

Thanks so much for your help. I love have all these allnurses mentors to help me with career questions like these. :)

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    The Army is requiring 2 years of RN experience for Active Duty commissioning, and 6 months for Reserves. Not sure where the other services are as far as accepting new grads, but they are feeling the same kind of pinch that is reflected in the civilian world -- more applicants than positions. There is some other good advice here: https://allnurses.com/government-military-nursing/considering-navy-pros-635423.html

    Your questions have been answered many times in various posts in this forum. My advice is to contact a recruiter if you really are interesting in serving -- there is no reason to be afraid to contact a recruiter, speaking to one does not commit you to anything. And with the current recruiting climate (competitive), the branch's missions change quickly, meaning that recruiters would have the most current advice and information. Good luck.

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