Foreign Trained nurses in the US

If you completed an LVN program, you never would have been granted permission to sit for the RN program in the first place. One has to complete an approved program in a school of nursing for the RN to be granted permission to sit for that exam. And if you trained out of the US, it means that your training did not meet the requirements of the BRN.

They have final say in which programs will meet their requirements.

Even if you completed a nursing program in another state, it is still required that it meets the requirements for the RN license if that is what you want to sit for.

Getting laid off from a job or a facility closing shows no preference to where one trained, but immigration status will play a part. Attending school in the US does not grant any favors when it comes to jobs, etc.

Each state can set their own requirements, some are more strict in CA than others, such as they have the 30 unit option for LVNs here, they just complete 30 credits and they can sit for the RN exam. But then that training is not accepted in any other state and one cannot endorse the license to anyplace else. You do not see this in any other state, as well as the fact that Excelsior grads can no longer get licensed in CA.

Each state has the right to set their own guidelines and rules that they have in place, if one wishes to work in that state, then they need to meet the requirements for that state. And not all programs that are even completed in the US meet the requirements of all 50 states here. And CA also has many unapproved schools that are opening up all over, primarily in the LA area that once the student graduates, they will not be able to get licensed anyplace, including CA since the programs were never approved by the state in the first place. Just the owners are making money on them.

And if you did your training out of the US, it means that it was not accepted for licensure as an RN in the first place when you first applied to CA. Not all programs are created equal.

Things were actually much more lax then than they are now as well.

the registered nurse population: findings from the 2004 national sample survey of registered nurses

highlights

• number of licensed registered nurses (rns) in the united states grew by almost 8 percent between 2000 and 2004 to a new high of 2.9 million
  
• average age of rns climbed to 46.8 years, the highest average age since the first comparable report was published in 1980.
  
  • just over 41 percent of rns were 50 years of age or older (33 percent in 2000 and 25 percent in 1980).
    
  • only 8 percent of rns were under the age of 30, compared with 25 percent in 1980.
    

  [*]average annual earnings for rns were $57,785.

  [*]real earnings (comparable dollars over time) have grown almost 14 percent since 2000, the first significant increase in more than a decade.

  [*]employment in nursing rose to more than 83 percent of rns with active licenses, the highest since 1980.

  [*]rns with master's or doctorate degrees rose to 376,901, an increase of 37 percent from 2000.

registered nurses educated outside the united states

the number of rns who received their initial rn education outside the united states increased about 1.3 percent, from 99,456 in 2000 to 100,791 in 2004. [25] most foreign educated rns were educated in the philippines (50.2 percent), followed by canada (20.2 percent) and the united kingdom (8.4 percent; see appendix a, table 44). the same pattern was present in 2000, where 40.1 percent of foreign trained rns came from the philippines, followed by canada (16.6 percent), and the united kingdom (9.3 percent). fully 59.5 percent (59,972) of foreign educated rns were from an ethnic or racial minority background, 31.3 percent were white non-hispanic (31,514), while 9.2 percent (9,305) did not report a race/ethnicity. the most often represented minority group among foreign educated rns was asian non-hispanic (48.9 percent or 49,297). the second most common was black or african american non-hispanic (6,707 or 6.7 percent) and hispanic or latino (2,110 or 2.1 percent). not surprisingly, about 68.5 percent of foreign-educated rns speak at least one language other than english, most often filipino (47.9 percent of foreign-educated rns). over half of the foreign-educated nurses (54.7 percent) speak only one language other than english, 12.1 percent speak two languages, and 1.6 percent speak three or more languages. a large number (4.3 percent) speak spanish, and almost equal numbers speak french or an asian language other than filipino (3.7 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively).

the majority of foreign educated rns received baccalaureate degrees as their initial nursing education (48,781 or 48.4 percent) followed by diplomas (41,898 or 41.6 percent). in contrast, 30.5 percent of all rns received their initial nursing education in baccalaureate programs, and 42.2 percent of rns received their initial nursing education in associate degree program. over half of the foreign-educated rns were estimated to have baccalaureate or higher degrees (59.2 percent), two percent of whom have doctorate degrees. over two percent of foreign-educated nurses in the 2004 survey (an estimated 2,446) were apns, of whom 65.8 percent were nps, another 13.1 percent were cnss, 11.1 percent were np/cns, and 10 percent were nms.

nearly 90 percent (89.2 or 89,860 rns) of foreign educated rns were employed in nursing. although all states employ foreign educated rns, the majority were concentrated in a handful of states in 2004. nearly seventy percent (69.7 percent) of foreign educated rns worked in six states:

• california (28.6 percent),
  
• florida (10.7 percent),
  
• new york (10.4 percent),
  
• texas (7.5 percent),
  
• new jersey (6.9 percent), and
  
• illinois (5.6 percent; appendix a, table 45).
  

overall, foreign educated rns are more likely than rns overall to be employed in hospitals (64.7 percent versus 56.2 percent of employed rns overall) and more likely to be staff nurses (72.6 percent versus 59.1 percent of employed rns overall; appendix a, table 46).

2,900,000 licensed nurses in us

- 100,791 foreign educated rn's

2,899,209 us trained rn's

more food for thought:

ojin: the online journal of issues in nursing may 31, 2008

international nurse migration: facilitating the transition

....the international migration of nurses will continue, and professionals have the right to be mobile in the world community. that experience allows them to give of the richness they bring and to take much back with them or to stay, as their preference dictates. this should be especially understandable in the us, a land of immigrants. adeniran et al. speak of the hospital of the university of pennsylvania’s (hup) acculturation program for internationally educated nurses, and their need for clinical practice and communication skills. the demands in the us are new and different; pain has a different meaning, as do confidentiality and privacy, and the participation of family in the plan of care. u.s. nurses are first and foremost autonomous, an advocate for their patients, speaking on their patients’ behalf and protecting them from injury and intrusion. with a primary commitment to their patients, before any employer or other healthcare professional, nurses are often the conscience of the delivery system wherein they participate. in that independence, nurses find vulnerability. there is no safe haven if you live by an ethical standard. adeniran et al. remind us that these nurses bring education in excess of many of the u.s. nurses, and years of clinical experience. i say that i cannot personally vouch for the nature of that education, and their experience was of another people and another place. yet the hup’s efforts are valiant and purposeful.

bauman and blythe also anticipate continued migration and the need for global acceptance of educational credits and credentials. this is understandable, and it has been the aim of the european community through the bologna process to secure this transferability. beyond this, there is the continuing business of education of nurses for export and distance learning to establish a world-wide educational community. the call is for predictability in education and competency in outcomes....

I think its not a question that the foreign nurses are taking American's jobs but rather there are too few jobs for anyone to get!