Endorsement to CA & Educational Requirements

[eyepenny]

Hi everyone! I have been registered here for years, as a lurker, but now I have a question!

I am currently a RN in the state of Maryland. I am looking at possibly relocating to California with my boyfriend within the next year. I have been trying to get in touch with the BRN in CA regarding endorsement but they are very hard to make contact with. I know they have specific educational requirements to obtain endorsement in CA, but I am trying to find out exactly what those education requirements are. I think I will probably need additional classes and I would like to work towards that now instead of finding out when I need to get licensed that I still have to take classes..

There is no information on their website regarding specifics (just the vague "educational requirements), and I cannot make contact via email or phone.

Can anybody help me out?

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

When you apply for endorsement, you will be have to submit transcript(s) from your school(s). To be precise, the schools themselves will have to submit the transcripts directly to the CA BRN. Submit transcripts for both your nursing courses and any pre-req courses that you took (e.g., A&P, microbio).

The educational requirements seem to trip up foreign, online and for-profit school graduates the most. If you went to a NLNAC or CCNE accredited school in the States, you should have minimum problems with endorsement and should not need to take additional classes...however don't take my word for law.

And for some reason, people think you can't endorse into CA unless you have a BSN. This is not true: diplomas and ADNs can endorse into CA as long as their programs meet CA's educational requirements.

Keep e-mailing them. Sometimes they take a while to respond, especially at this time of year with all of the new graduates.

[chot2011]

I can list some off the top of my head and maybe others can add to my list:

Anatomy

Physiology

Microbiology

Nutrition

Developmental Psychology

All the actual nursing classes- pediatric, labor & delivery/obstetrics/mother baby (pretty sure this can go by a lot of names depending where you go to school), psychiatric/mental health nursing, etc.

It is very hard to reach the CA nursing board. I've gotten through calling 3x per day at different times, day after day, and eventually was able to talk to someone (which turned out to be essential because they were confused about one of my transcripts, and talking to them was able to clear it up).

Good luck!

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I had only submitted my nursing school transcript, and got a letter from CA BON today that requested other transcripts that (verbatim from the letter) "reflect completion of General Psychology, Social Sciences, Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, Written and Oral Communications." It gives me a year from the letter date to submit the information before my application is considered abandoned. In my case, I had to send transcripts from 2 other schools to reflect the courses they indicated above. I hope that was enough! Thankfully, I am planning way in advance so I am not in a hurry to get endorsed for CA. Interestingly enough, getting endorsed in some other states is not as much of a hassle.

[SailorWifey]

In the event of not having these classes (my college didnt require that I take a psychology class - not sure why) am I able to simply take that one class somewhere and send the transcript to CA when I finish it? That seems like an easy process, so I am bracing myself for something worse... Any ideas?