Frustrating CNO process for IENs

[kakeru]

I'm an internationally educated nurse and have had extensive experience in nursing from my homeland and internationally. I'm on the process of assessment in CNO for RN registration. I'm also a new immigrant in Canada looking for a better future for my family and aiming for career advancement. However, ironically, CNO might have mislead me into a chaotic process of registration.

I was assessed to undergo OSCE through CEPHEA to determine if I have gaps in nursing practice. I am resigned that I will definitely have identified gaps especially in regards to Canada's nursing practice which I'm not quite familiar with. However, what ****** me off is that CNO seems to have no idea on how to help the IENs fill in the gaps. Imagine a friend of mine who recently been assessed with 3 gaps among the many criteria and after which was lost what to to next. She was given a list of colleges and universities to inquire from and guess what?? The were no particular pathway or courses available to specifically fill in the gaps. There is however, a bridging program at York university which takes 20 months to finish and accepts only 50 candidates per school year. Talk about the backlog of IENs who wanted to get in! it's hundreds or probably thousands! Other colleges offer courses too by the way, then you need to push through university. So in total that will take you three years to finish.

I understand that Canadian nursing system is different and I am most willing to conform with what is needed. However, it's really insulting to IEN's to pay for an OSCE assessment then be left without a clear tract of what's going to happen if we fail. No offense but I've worked for 15 years internationally and I don't think that I have to study for 20 months more so 3 long years to be an RN in Canada. Nursing is nursing regardless of where we came from. It's basically caring with few tweaks of technical differences from place to place. And personally, I think, it should not take 20 months or more to learn and conform with the differences. So frustrating!!!

[elkpark]

"However, what ****** me off is that CNO seems to have no idea on how to help the IENs fill in the gaps."

We get lots of similar complaints here from IENs about the various US BONs (I am in the US). The job of the CNO (and the various US state BONs) is to license and regulate the practice of nursing within its geographic boundaries in order to protect the public. Their role is to decide whether licensure applicants meet the established requirements or not, and issue licenses to those who do. It is not the responsibility of the CNO, or any other nursing licensing agency, to help applicants meet the requirements. Nursing licensure is a privilege, not a right. If you want licensure from the CNO, you need to meet their requirements, regardless of how long you've been practicing successfully somewhere else. As for accommodating a large backlog of IEN applicants, again, that's not the CNO's problem, esp. since there is apparently no acute need for additional nurses in Canda at this time.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Very well-said, elkpark.

[kakeru]

I understand that CNO is a licensing body. Most of the IENs are willing to comply with what is required. However, CNO has an obligation that the rules they make are congruent to the education offered here in Ontario. There's no sense of having been assessed for gaps and be required to study the whole course regardless of how much has been identified. Unlike with the other provinces here in Canada, OSCE for IENs is new in Ontario. In other provinces, the BON summarizes the deficiencies and will suggest specific courses geared to meet the gaps. It makes more sense.

[Fiona59]

I understand that CNO is a licensing body. Most of the IENs are willing to comply with what is required. However, CNO has an obligation that the rules they make are congruent to the education offered here in Ontario. There's no sense of having been assessed for gaps and be required to study the whole course regardless of how much has been identified. Unlike with the other provinces here in Canada, OSCE for IENs is new in Ontario. In other provinces, the BON summarizes the deficiencies and will suggest specific courses geared to meet the gaps. It makes more sense.

No Canadian province has a BON.

It would make sense to learn the terms for the country you are living in and hope to work in.

[loriangel14, RN]

I understand that CNO is a licensing body. Most of the IENs are willing to comply with what is required. However, CNO has an obligation that the rules they make are congruent to the education offered here in Ontario. There's no sense of having been assessed for gaps and be required to study the whole course regardless of how much has been identified. Unlike with the other provinces here in Canada, OSCE for IENs is new in Ontario. In other provinces, the BON summarizes the deficiencies and will suggest specific courses geared to meet the gaps. It makes more sense.

If you have deficiencies in the US they do not provide you with the needed schooling either. it's not just Canada.There are plenty of IENs trying to get licensed in CA that can't find programs that will top them up.Your education is not Canada's responsibility.

[kakeru]

And do you think that's fair?the OSCE here in Ontario aims to assess IEN's gaps in regards to Canadian nursing system plus the many areas of nursing. Given this predicament, it can easily be inferred that the answers to the so called "gaps" are available in universities where the Canadian nurses graduated from. I don't know about your system in US but here in Ontario its a chaos. The process is misleading and we ended up being RPNs. And when I used BON I meant body of nursing or college here in Canada.

[Fiona59]

And do you think that's fair?the OSCE here in Ontario aims to assess IEN's gaps in regards to Canadian nursing system plus the many areas of nursing. Given this predicament, it can easily be inferred that the answers to the so called "gaps" are available in universities where the Canadian nurses graduated from. I don't know about your system in US but here in Ontario its a chaos. The process is misleading and we ended up being RPNs. And when I used BON I meant body of nursing or college here in Canada.

So, being an RPN is worse than being unemployerd? Demeaning in some way?

No Canadian nurse uses the term BON.

Sounds like you really, really wanted to go to the US and are ticked at being here. Which must be a better place than the one you migrated from

[kakeru]

Not really. I never wanted to work in US. It never was an option to me, honestly. I've chosen Canada over US from the start. Must have been a wrong decision though...

Don't get me wrong, being an RPN is not in anyway demeaning.

I just felt that IEN's experience should also be taken into consideration. Which was happening before, by the way. This wasn't the process I signed up for when I started and then they made the changes recently which unfairly affected the old applicants...

Oh well, what more can I do? No blabbering can change their rules. That's just too bad

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

You can criticize the process all you want. But the fact remains that YOU came to Canada. You chose Ontario and when you did that, you chose to take the risk that you'd not meet the requirements. I don't understand how CNO could have misled you when their website is one of the most concise, comprehensive and detailed of all the Colleges of Nursing in terms of basic competencies and minimum standards for registration. (I know... I've spent a lot of time getting familiar with all the provincial websites.) The rules didn't change at all, only the way they were being applied. OSCE is and has been part of the IEN assessment process in most provinces for many years but is called different things by different colleges. In Manitoba it's CCA, in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan it's SEC but it's exactly the same assessment tool. Almost a decade ago, this form of assessment became necessary when it was discovered that a significant number of IENs recruited off-shore, for whom many thousands of dollars each had already been spent, could not meet even the most basic level of function that would be expected of a newly-graduated Canadian nurse.

What the College of Nursing is required to do by law is to ensure ALL persons practicing as registered nurses or registered/licensed practical nurses in Canada are held to the same standard. That is all. They're not obligated in any way to help any one meet that standard. Another factor in all of this has been the dramatic increase in the number of IENs from all over the world deciding Canada - usually Ontario or BC - is where they're going to go, creating huge numbers of candidates who don't meet minimum standards. You said it yourself. I don't understand how Ontario and the CNO can be held responsible if you aren't making the grade.

Should it be up to Canada to create and provide education to someone who wasn't born here, has never lived here before, has never paid taxes here and will probably move on to greener pastures (or return home) in a few years? And how would the post-secondary education system know which gaps they needed to address when every country has a different approach to nursing education, with a range of core subjects which students in Canada are required to complete that are completely ignored? For a time Alberta had a programme through Mount Royal College, paid for by the province and not the individual, that filled in the gaps for IENs. But the cost of the programme became much too high to be sustainable at the same time that the need for IENs disappeared. So the programme was discontinued. As well it should have been. The notion that Canada owes anything to citizens of other countries who chose to move here for our "better life" - which we Canadians support through our more-than-excessive taxes - without having all their ducks in a row first is at least mildly offensive.

[kakeru]

I understand where you are coming from and before I came here I have weighed all the risks involved with our move. It has been a great deal of sacrifice considering what I left behind. And I have every right as an immigrant and I am religiously paying my taxes. And if ever I need to study I will pay. I didn't come here to beg or depend. I came here because I want to work.

You lost the argument because we are not talking about taxes the immigrant should be paying. You don't have the right to look down on the capabilities of IENs. You don't know what they have sacrificed and what they are capable of.

I am aware of OSCE in other provinces of Canada and that's what I thought the process will be in Ontario. For instance in Manitoba, if the college identified gaps in your practice, the college will guide you how to bridge the gaps. There is a program available. A very clear tract. From what you are saying, it seems that the OSCE was designed to put off the IENs. Well I refuse to believe that.

[gingereh]

Mount Royal still has a bridging program.

As an IEN who did have all her "ducks in a row" when I came to Canada, the attitude from some long time posters here towards any immigrant asking how to fulfill nursing gaps has always come off as a little harsh, not to mention any questioning job opportunities. It doesn't seem that far fetched to me that if a nursing regulatory body tells you that such and such is the requirement for registration, there should be SOME option somewhere in the province to fulfill such requirements. Not that the province should pay for it, but that it should be available. Otherwise there would never ever be an option for immigrants to enter the profession. But given the responses from some people, it seems that would make Canadian nurses happy.

I came from the states where we also had to compete for jobs with immigrants. I get it. But every poster on this board asking any such question gets jumped on with the "there are no jobs, we don't owe you anything, you will have a tough time here," even when that is not necessarily what the OP asks.