Help!

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Hi, I am currently a senior nursing student. I am currently on F1 visa studying in the United States. I am hoping to stay in the states after I graduate with OPT visa. However, I am experiencing some difficulties with finding hospitals that would sponsor H1B visa or whatever visa that would allow me to work after OPT visa expires.

I am fluent in Korean and English, so I was looking into places with high Korean population in hopes of the hospitals may need some nurses who can speak both languages. Since I am studying in NY, I was looking in to NYC as its Korean population is considerably high. I am also aware that the hospitals in NYC are very competitive. So I thought that I might try to get my preceptorship done in one of the hospitals in NYC to get my feet into the door. My dream hospital is New York-Presbyterian hospital. However, I am more than willing to move states or live in less Korean populated places as long as I could get hired once I graduate. I do not mind going to a different state, but I would prefer going to a city.

Information about myself: I currently have 3.5/4.0 GPA. I have been awarded presidential scholarship. I am a president of Lions club, Amnesty International, and International Student Organization. I am a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society. However, I only have been working on campus that are not nursing related due to visa status. I am particularity interested in NICU, OB, and PEDS. However, I am more than happy to work in other departments.

So here are my questions.

1. Which place (or hospitals) would you recommend me looking into to do my preceptorship?

2. Do you know of any hospitals that offer visa sponsorship to international nurses who are trained in the United States?

3. I have not done any summer internship, what can I do to put myself ahead of other students?

Any type of advice is appreciated. Thank you for your time.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Hi there,

Houston has quite a large Korean population and a very large Asian population. Yeah, I know this goes against the popular stereotypes (even here on AN) about Texas in general, and Houston specifically. The primary Korean population concentration is West Houston in an area called Spring Branch. There may be some other hospitals in the area that attract the Korean population also. There are large Asian populations also in the Sugar Land and Baytown (Vietnamese) areas. So you may want to explore opportunities in those areas. The closest big hospital to that area would be Memorial-Hermann Memorial City and Memorial-Hermann Southwest.

I would also suggest that you may want to contact The Korean organizations in Houston to see if there is anyone who could assist you. You can Google for contact info.

Good luck

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

H1b is usually specialist visa and a new grad doesn't always meet criteria. The issue is finding hospital full stop as nursing isn't in demand especially in NY. Immigrant visa, usually nurses come under EB3 so a lot depends on place of birth and if you check out US visa bulletin and look up current processing dates for EB3 that will give you a rough idea on processing times of PD which is the date your visa application from your employer is approved

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Are you credentialed to translate and interpret Korean/English? Fluency doesnt help much since the JC standard is credentialed translator/interpreter.

There is is minimal need for an inexperienced new grad that also requires visa sponsorship in the NY metropolitan area

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