Need help and advice

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Specializes in acute medicine and elderly rehab.

I am an english nurse who has been qualified for just over a year, my family and i would like to relocate to Florida, i need advice on how to start the process, do i use an agency? or do i try to go it alone so to speak? any advice would be greatly recieved also is there anyone out there who has made this move?:chair: :cheers:

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I am not familiar with florida, but try the Florida Board of Nursing.

Dabuggy

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I moved your post to the International Forum for more responses. You might check out the primer at the top of this forum as well. Good luck!

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Hi there,

This is totally possible but the keyword is PATIENCE!!!!! Lots of people will reply and say to read all the info at the top of the international forum. This is great advice but I remember well how confusing all this info was trawling through it all as a newbie to it all!!!!

So your start and basics are.....

1) Licensure Information for Foreign Educated Applicants - Nursing

This is a link to Florida info from their BON (Board of Nursing) and their rules for international nurses.

I dont know anything about the other companies for Credential evaluation apart from cgfns who are slow I am 8 months and counting waiting for my Evaluation to come back.

2) Apply to the BON

https://ww2.doh.state.fl.us/initialapp/Controller/App_Inst.asp

Follow the link at the bottom and answer questions. I wouldnt do this till you have done all your homework on the process though.

The Credential evaluation process requires transcrips of your education so for us uk nurses this will involve sending the forms the Credentialing company sends us along with a fee to the following - Qualification agency for your GCSEs and A levels (My fee was £40), Any university you went to and the Nursing University or college you went to (My fee was £40). You can call these people before sending the forms to find out the fee.

3) Once you have your Credential review and have applied to BON you will be informed if your nursing education is enough to be allowed to sit the nursing exam nclex or if you are short in hours. This is very very common especially if you are just trained in the last 3 years. General nurses are usually short Peadiatric, maternity and psychiatric hours. Psychiatric nurses are often short medical and surgical hours. In both cases these are practical and theory hours. If you are short of hours you will need to either make these up at a recognised school of nusing in UK (very hard to find somewhere) or do this in the usa on a student visa (expensive).

4) Then after you have permission (or made up hours then got permission) you sit nclex exam.

5) After passing this you can look for an employer to sponser you to come to usa.

6) After finding an employer they will petition for your green card and you start process of getting your green card.

NOW a few things, at the moment there are no green cards available to foreign nurses there is whats called Retrogression in place basically all the visas are used up. We dont know when this will end, hoping next year but this isnt definate. There is some info on here that UK nurses will be ok as there will be an issue next Quarter or visas for our country but again I havent found concrete evidence of this (she said hoping someone will correct her and tell her she will be fine lol)

But you dont need to worry about this yet you are looking time wise is 2-3 years before your move thats how long it takes to go through the process above.

As for using an agency, I can see why people do it is confusing and time consuming to do it all yourself, and you have to pay your own fees as you go, for us that has been,

$220 Apply to NJ BON

$195 cgfns Credential Review (I think about this)

$85 Fingerprinting for NJ BON

That said going with agency can be slower, and you are at their mercy, they call the shots and when you do get to usa you are contracted to them they can vary your place/time of work. They also make their money back from you that they pay out in bucket loads by taking x amount off your hourly wage.

It is totally possible to do this yourself especially with the help of great sites like this, you just apply to the people you need to, study for nclex and arrange to sit it (done thro web site really easy to organize) then contact employers direct about a job. You will be much better off financially and time wise doing it yourself.

Ok that was long lol but feel free to ask me any questions I remember well how hard it is to start!!

Ruthx

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Specializes in acute medicine and elderly rehab.

Hi ruth,

thanks for taking the time to reply to my plea, it all looks so complicated and scary, but i am determined to try, its the exam which is scaring me most as ive heard it is so hard to pass, ill take your advice step by step and heres hoping to a brighter future (and warmer):nurse:

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Hi ruth,

thanks for taking the time to reply to my plea, it all looks so complicated and scary, but i am determined to try, its the exam which is scaring me most as ive heard it is so hard to pass, ill take your advice step by step and heres hoping to a brighter future (and warmer):nurse:

No problems your welcome, and dont worry about the nclex exam it is no as impossible as you think. I am currently studying for it and it there are lots and lots of ways to answer questions even if you dont know the answer by a process of elimination. It is multiple choice and worse case senario you can sit it over and over (not that you will need to lol)

I am currently using Saunders Comprehensive Review 3rd edition

Amazon.co.uk: Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination: Books: Linda Anne Silvestri

This is a brilliant book split into easy managable and understandable chapter with questions at the end of each chapter and a 3000 nclex question disc in it. I am about halfway through and with 1 read and note take per chapter am averaging 17/18 out of 20 per chapter. There are lots of review courses to do even classroom based ones.

Good luck and give us a shout with any questions.

Ruthx

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Specializes in Critical Care Nursing.

saunder's is great

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Hi and welcome

Ruth has givn an excellantway through the mine field of stuff to go through but the bigest problem I see is your training seeing as you have only been qualified a year. Good luck and make sure you stock up on patience

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Specializes in med/surg.

I agree with SD, it's your hours that are most likely to be deficient, you will probably have to make time up in paeds, maternity & psychiatry theory &/or practical. It is possible - check out some of the threads on this both here & in the UK forum - but it will cost you!

Oh & did SD mention patience?? :rotfl:

You'll also need access to a good photocopier that won't break down under the workload you're gonna be giving it, should you decide to take the plunge & go for it! :lol2:

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Patience.... Patience... slowly running out of mine :uhoh3:

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Specializes in med/surg.
Patience.... Patience... slowly running out of mine :uhoh3:

Hang in there! XXX Although my DH ran out of his months ago!:lol2:

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.
Hang in there! XXX Although my DH ran out of his months ago!:lol2:

So has mine but if he hadn't backed out would probably be on our way by now :madface: Still in one way made him more determined to go this time, just he is getting really frustrated with work as he is hating every minute of it at the moment

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