Continue being GN or apply for my RN?

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Aug 12, 2013

This could depend on where you are and what area of nursing you're in. And it could also depend on whether you're working in the province where you wrote your exam. Each province seems to have a different registration "year" and some provinces don't offer much of a proration of fees. Manitoba's and New Brunswick's registration year is the same as the calendar year. BC's runs March 1 to February 28, Nova Scotia from November 1 to October 31, Saskatchewan is December 1 to November 30 and Alberta's is October 1 to September 30. If you register in the last quarter of the registration year in NB, NS or SK you'll pay fairly reasonable prorated fees but if you're in AB you're going to get hosed. (Been there, done that!) So from that perspective, if you're registering in AB, I'd say wait and register for 2014. Anywhere else, I'd suggest calculating what your retro pay will be and see if it's worth it to just pay the prorated fee.

Next consideration: working in a different province from where you wrote the exam. You have to register where you wrote before you can register where you're working. There's no way around that. Here's where proration is really important. Just realize that it will take several weeks from the time you register in the first province before you'll be registered in the second, because there will need to be some exchange of documentation and a verification of registration before Province #2 will register you.

But on the other hand, if you've been working as a GN since the minute you graduated and are working in an area where there are a lot of restrictions on the GN scope of practice (such as the ICU) then you've probably been off orientation for a while, are over your probationary period and are being a bit of a burden on your coworkers who have to take on the restricted activities you can't legally perform. You may set yourself up for some resentment if you delay your initial registration to save a couple hundred bucks in fees.

Some will argue that it's unethical and unprofessional to delay registration to save money. That's a topic I won't touch!