World International
Published Jun 18, 2016
Skippy97
109 Posts
I am a young Euro/ American born in the USA, living in the UK for about 4 years now, looking into becoming a nurse, but i would like to know more about the Registered General Nurse UK qualification. I understand, this is the only branch of nursing transferable to the USA in case I would like to return, in the future. How do I go about getting this RGN qualification? I was unable to find any information on any programmes. I was hoping to instead of getting my BSN in child, adult, mental, or learning disability, to get the RGN, but again I apologize I have no idea how I go about getting this. Thank you for any information you can provide me!
Silverdragon102, BSN
1 Article; 39,477 Posts
RGN is the old training in the UK. For the last several years it changed to branch training so RGN is not done anymore.
Thank you, so there is only the 4 specified branches nowadays? That's what I was thinking people meant. So would you know if the 4 branches are at all transferable? I read yes's and no's, I heard there are FEN catch-up courses for international nurses in US, but not even sure if any nurses successfully made the transition. Love it here, but my family is in the US, so you never know.
to meet US requirements you need both clinical and theory hours in Paeds, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Adult. Most UK trained nurses these days are short of hours especially in Obstetrics and Paeds. Finding schools in the US to make up these hours will be difficult and costly and there are no courses in the UK to make up these hours as they train you for the UK not the rest of the world
JustBeachyNurse, LPN
13,957 Posts
Nursing schools train you to practice in the country of education not to train and practice overseas. Even US & Canada whilst both generalist trained the education isn't interchangeable.
I said in case... I realize your trained for that specific country. There are, however nurses who made the move to a new country, so I am asking them.
Especially UK (specialist trained) whether trying to work in UK or leave UK for the US it's exceptionally difficult. There is no easy way to secure the mandated clinical and theory hours in pedi, adult, obstetrics (mostly OB as UK uses midwives) and psych/mental health.
The education of does not translate internationally so you can't start in country A and finish in country B.
Non-UK/EU trained nurses struggle to meet the clinical hour requirements due to the difference in training/educational focus.
Look in the nurse registration for US educated and other nurses struggling up hill to qualify for the NMC. It's lengthy and expensive.
Here are struggles of nurses trying to qualify for the NMC
https://allnurses.com/nurse-registration/nmc-test-online-960003.html
And a UK nurse struggling to qualify for the US:
https://allnurses.com/nurse-registration/expat-rn-1056670.html
https://allnurses.com/nurse-registration/uk-nurse-registration-973333.html