International travel?

NedRN · Feb 17, 2016

Your most likely destination countries would be Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. For all three countries, your best bet is to work on getting a license first (in practice, you will now need a BSN), and then contracting directly with a hospital (there may be some country localized agencies that can help). Then you can get a work permit. You would be staff with a one year contract, fully benefited.

In most countries, when you enter to work, you must have a work permit in hand. If you come on a tourist visa (technically not allowed to look for work), you must leave and re-enter once you have the work permit. New Zealand is a rare exception to that. You can visit on a tourist visa, legally look for work, get a job, work permit, stay and work.

A different way to go if you are looking for something more exotic like Bermuda or BVI is an agency called Worldwide. I doubt you will be able to obtain a year contract, but instead will be a more traditional traveler.

If you want to go to the Middle East, Helen Ziegler is the most common agency. But if you google it, there are a number of other agencies. Having zero interest in the Mideast, I don't know that much about it. Definitely some cultural issues, especially for women. Some like the generous vacations given and the quick and cheap air access to Europe, others are truly interested in the culture. Often nurses think they will make more there than here, but I don't believe that to be true compared to travel nursing.

CampNurse10 · Feb 17, 2016

THanks for the info. I emailed 2 places, one for New Zealand and one for UK. Have you done any of this type of work? I would be travelling with a husband and school age child so school placement for 1 year would be a priority for us. Thanks again.

NedRN · Feb 17, 2016

I did a 6 month contract in the UK (close to a year with everything though), and applied for a NZ license. Never finalized the NZ one as they had some issues with my school clinical hours and I would have had to do a several week observed practice in NZ. I was OK with that, but never got around to going. I did go to high school in New Zealand (one of only two coed schools in the Wellington area at the time) and went back a couple times later for extended visits.

I'm not sure how having a spouse impacts their residency along with your work permit. Back in the day when my parents went to NZ on a three year contract, there wasn't any issue. Of course, there was still a baby bonus back then.

With all three countries (including Australia), your entire family will be covered under national health plans. So that part will be easier to navigate than here, and you will likely find that it justifies the high tax burden.

While these countries speak the same language and have similar cultures, the culture is different enough from ours that you want to be sure you have the empathy to adapt. This goes especially for working in healthcare where you may find the different standard of care intolerable. Many American nurses bail quickly from foreign workplaces. The practices in the UK operating theatres were certainly jaw dropping for US trained nurses. I did two months of opthalmology and it was just amazing how many patients came in with active chest pain and still had their cataracts done (under local of course). The other four months was spent in open heart, and most of the patients we did were emergencies (not quite like our emergent cardiac surgery cases) having failed to do the entire year of wait list prior to their surgery. On the plus side, the paperwork burden is delightfully low.

Attitudes towards children are very different from the US. Definitely second rate citizens, and school children will have uniforms. In high school assembly every morning, the girls all sat on one side, and the boys sat on the other side. Caning may still be allowed in schools. I was up for one once over a fight in school, but given leniency for being American where corporal punishment in schools is not allowed.

If you think you can fit in and go native outside your own home, it will be a wonderful experience no matter where you go.