Help with license/school for military spouse

Published

first, just wanted to say i have found this forum to be extremely helpful with getting connected with whats going on in the nursing field with colleges, and jobs. i am currently stationed in fort drum ny and although im familiar with ike i didnt know it shut down the hospital in galveston and had the effects on houstons hiring situation that it did.

anyways..

im looking to deploy for the last time- thank god- in january, and then im getting out of the army and coming back to texas as a civilian. my wife has been wanting to get in to nursing, and we have found a college- boces in watertown ny, that has a program that is starting and ending while i am deployed. we are looking to go up and fill out an application with them later this week. i plan on asking them these same questions when i go in, but i figured it would be good to ask my fellow texans as well...

she will be taking the lpn program.

if she goes to school there, she will be doing clinicals 2 days a week. although im not sure at this time how many hours of clinicals she will have upon completion, i assume it is above the minimum required to take the licensure exam (dont even know if its a national, or state exam).

her graduation date will be approximately 2 months before we will be coming back to texas. she could come back immediatly after if needed for any reason, as i will be up in ny handling having our stuff moved and what not.

so can she graduate, then take texas license exam instead of the ny exam? or will she have to take the ny exam, and then try to transfer it to texas? my worry is that if she takes the ny exam and becomes licensed in ny, then she will have a hard time transferring her license, because she will have 0 experience working in the field other than clinicals, because we will be coming back to texas so shortly after her graduation.

reason for her taking the school in ny is because its not as competitive as the schools here in houston, and also she doesnt have to worry about the traffic, and she will still have all the benifits of living on a military base if she stays in ny. it just works out to be a ton eaiser than moving her and my son back to houston while im deployed, and her possibly not making it in to classes and not being done before i come back to texas, which will put a strain on us.

we are hoping for her to be working when i get out, because id like to take advantage of the g.i. bill and go back to school myself, which the govt. will pay for me to go to school full time, along with giving us monthly pay to live on, although its far from what we would need to live unless we moved into an effeciancy in greenspoint and took metro everywhere lol.

i did find the phone number to the texas board of nurses, but they are already closed for the day. i do plan on calling and asking them what our options might be as well.

hopefully they are able to work with us. the board of funeral directors (i am a licensed embalmer) was very easy to work with when i enlisted in the army. all it took was a copy of my orders and they put my license on a freeze, so i didnt have to pay renewal fees or take continuing ed while im in the army.

although i do plan on keeping up with that license, i think im going to look into getting into the medial field myself. possibly a associates in nursing, or paramedic.

anyways, thanks for reading.

anyone with any suggestions or even more numbers for me to call to ask questions to any agencies is welcome to reply.

sorry for the long read and giving out the ol life story, but im more or less looking for advice at this time.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU Level III.

email the tx bon instead of calling; you'll get a much faster answer.

you can test in a different state than you went to school in.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

wow, didnt realize how long i rambled on in the above post lol.

anyways, i talked to both the texas and ny state nursing boards on the phone today.

both were extremely helpful.

what i learned..

1. although they cant give me a direct yes or no as its a case by case basis, the texas board says they have yet to see a ny license transfer or school transfer get turned down. they said the big problem is california, as texas does not recognize the schooling or licensing in cali, and nurses who have been practicing for 20 years in cali will still get turned down.

2. hinted towards it being harder to get accepted into a school in houston to the lady @ texas board... she agreed and went on to talk about how its even harder to get a job these days in the area, and that the schools were indeed very competitive.

3. hinted at ny being easier to get into schooling than texas to the lady at ny board, and she laughed and said although everywhere in the united states is technically on a nursing shortage and probably always will be... that we should have no problems getting into the school and that the only thing we need to worry about is the wash out rate.. not the application vs. acceptance ratio.

so things are looking good for now.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Hi, wanted to also let you know about the 6,000 for your spouse. It is free to us military spouses. Wasnt sure if you knew about it or not, go to military one source.com to find out more info on it. We are in Michigan and hopefully moving back to texas in a year. I am starting in the fall here for my pre-req for nursing, spoke with CTC at Ft hood area and they said there is no pre-req for LPN course there, so, I might try for the RN if I have them all or just do the bridge myself down the road.

Good Luck to you and your wife, take care and stay safe and THANK YOU for your service and THANK YOU to your wife for hers too!!!

APril C

proud military wife and mom

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion