Newly qualified British nurse

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Can anyone help me please on what steps to take to practice in Washington state?

i am a newly qualified British nurse, with 6 months work experience in A&E, that has recently moved to kent Washington with a green card. 1 would like advice on what steps to take in order to start practicing here in America and obtain a license.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, as I am completely unsure of what steps I need to undertake to achieve this.

Thank you.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Here you go . . . all of the Washington state Nurse Licensing information you need. The process and requirements for nurses trained outside the US is clearly outlined on the form.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

On average processing before eligibility to sit NCLEX takes approx 4 months regardless on agency. The issue you may have is not enough clinical and theory hours in Paeds, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Adult. Usually Paeds and Obstetrics are the areas missing in hours. Does your transcripts show hours in all 4 areas?

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Thank you, I will check the information out.

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No my transcripts doesn't show the hours. I know the nursing training here is completly different from the UK, in the sense that you are allowed to pick what field you want to specialise on and concentrate on that in the UK in comparison to here. I specialised in adult nursing.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

The US is general so you will need clinical hours as well as theory hours in the areas I mentioned. There are no universities in the UK that do courses that resolve this issue for people moving overseas where training is general. Many people find it difficult to find anywhere in the US that will allow them to do just the courses required so you may find it difficult to meet requirements.

I know how the UK training is having done my training back in the 80's as well as bridge to RN in the 90's. I was lucky that my training covered all areas and met requirements for both US and Canada and now working in Canada and loving it

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Thank you for replying. I have thought a lot about this, and worried that I might find it difficult getting a job in the US. Do you think having a masters degree might improve my chances?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

To do masters you need a RN licence so same issues may be there. Really all you can do is start process and get eval of transcripts done then go forward from there

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Any ideas on how I can be able to get clinical and theory hours for those branches of nursing I don't have? Would I have to enrol back in school here or community college?

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

The difficulty lies in that most schools will not allow students to take just part of a nursing course.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

You could contact local nursing schools in the area you live and see if they may consider you but until you know what you are short you may find it hard to get that arranged.

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