Dreams: US RN to UK or Spain? Looking for advise or experiences:)

[yam, BSN, RN]

Hi there!

I was hoping, if any of you have had experience transitioning from the US to the UK or Spain for nursing could share your experiences and thoughts.

I am a new grad RN, BSN working in a Surgical Specialty unit with hopes to move to Europe w/in the next two years- Studied abroad there and I'm obsessed! I am fluent in English and Spanish so I am doing research for Nursing in Spain and England (I would prefer Spain, but would love either or).

I was wondering about scope of practice differences, pt ratio, nursing culture, training/oriention and lifestyle (24, not married, no children) a nurse could have in either country.

I would appreciate any advice :)

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Moved to the International Nursing forum as also asking about Spain. NMC is a long process, suggest checking out the Nurse Registration forum for process and issues people have faced. Spain we do not hear a lot about however we do see that a lot of Spanish nurses end up working in other countries as jobs not so good

[Fiona59]

First thing, you do realize that jobs go to EU citizens first.

Spain has public and private hospitals. The private ones require you to be fluent in at least two languages and have experience before working for them. (A friend had family in hospital last year and she's a nurse, so she had a lot to tell us, lol). The pay isn't what you'd expect. The public hospitals have laid people off. The hospital she reported back on had a mixture of 12 and 7 hour shifts and did rotating shifts.

She said the nursing was similar with a lot of the same equipment but patients are expected to follow instructions and despite being in the private system, not as vocal in complaints to staff. The hospital had translators on staff but the staff all spoke and wrote English.

Spain has a very high unemployment rate in the under 30 age group.