Nursing in British Columbia

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Hi folks, wondered if anyone could help me? My wife and I are both British trained nurses, my speciality is developmental disabilities and my wife psychiatric. We both have substantial experience in forensic care, community mental health as well as liaison psychiatry and developmental disability care. We are looking into working in Canada; from my research so far it would seem British Columbia is the best option as they have psychiatric nurses (in Britain we train by branch speciality). I'm aware that we'd have to do the SEC test, my main worry is that due to my background I won't be recognised; I've received word from a nursing agency based in Vancouver that they do have registered nurses working in developmental disabilities. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, on that note are there any British trained nurses working in Canada who have had similar experiences? Thanks in advance.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

I think the biggest hurdle will be finding a employer to go the PR route as currently nurses was removed from the skilled list. Most people have posted that after SEC courses have been required and from my understanding it isn't cheap however hard to predict without going through the process.

Are you RN or RMN registere?

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I'm actually registered as an RNLD, which is learning disabilities, I think it's known as developmental disability in Canada. I'm guessing this qualification isn't known in Canada?

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The western provinces have Registered Psychiatric Nurses. Found mainly in psych facilities but I've encountered the odd one in Geriatrics/LTC areas and once in Women's Health.

Nurses in Canada are trained across the age spectrum. Even the RPNs.

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At this stage I'm wondering if they'd just tell me to go away?!

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

The only way to find out is try however if you do not have hours both clinical and theory in Paeds, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Adult then you will have issues registering as a RN in Canada

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That would be difficult as we don't train like that here, would we have to get those hours in before coming over?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Best of my knowledge is that there is nowhere in the UK that offers top up courses like this as training geared to working in the UK

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