StudentRN56

Not sure if you got an answer to this question or not. But here's my advice based on my experience. Apply for NCAS and BCCNM first - they will help hook you up with a job through HealthMatchBC. I already became a permanent resident without needing a job through marriage - but the employer will be able to sponsor you. As for your cat, we got our cats' health certificates from the vet before bringing them across the border - mostly they wanted rabies to be up to date. https://inspection.canada.ca/importing-food-plants-or-animals/pets/eng/1326600389775/1326600500578

I became a school nurse after private duty nursing. It was so nice - day shifts, no weekends, easy to take days off, no guilt trips about aforementioned days off, lots of training opportunities. There are a couple different kinds of school nurses too where I worked - the population based nurse (whole schools, infection control, and case management for students with DM, severe allergies, asthma, and seizures), the 1-on-1 nurse (for those medically fragile kiddos), and the complex needs nurse (who coordinated care for the more medically complex students). I work on a medical floor in a hospital now because we've moved and I couldn't find a similar job - and I miss my school nurse job a lot... just a thought, especially if you were working with medically fragile children like I was.

Just wanted to give an update - I finally called NNAS at the end of March and they quickly finished my review. In the meantime, BC joined the Maritime Provinces to use the NCAS to have everything evaluated. So, NNAS sent NCAS my report and NCAS had me fill out similar forms and send them to my previous employers and schools - NCAS received them quickly and I was told I probably had 4-6 months for BC College of Nurses and Midwives to evaluate everything. But it was actually much faster than that. Since I went to nursing school in the US, (I believe it includes the US, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand - since they are all English speaking with similar quality of education) I was eligible to be fast-tracked. By the end of July, I'd secured a position in the town I now live in. I have 1 class to take - Introduction to the Canadian Healthcare System within the next 6 months and I have a preceptor for my first 250 hrs. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (eventually). With the NCAS - they really have streamlined to process. BC has BC Health Match, to get you lined up with a job as well as offering bursaries if you sign a 2 year contract with the local health authority.

OOH - cool to put the agencies down! I will check those out! I applied to get a BC RN license but I'm still waiting for them to evaluate everything - so I haven't been able to apply for any jobs just yet. I can confirm you don't need citizenship to work in Canada. You just need a work permit if you aren't a citizen. One thing I've noticed is that some of the job postings - especially the ones I've seen for travel nursing in BC- is that they require Canadian work experience - just want that to be on your radar... The postings I found were on indeed.ca

Hi - I'm a US citizen and US educated registered nurse. I've moved to Canada with my Canadian husband so we could be closer to his aging parents. If you were not educated in Canada, you will be an Internationally Educated Nurse and will need to do some leg work to get a nursing license in Canada - it isn't like moving from one state to another, which is fairly easy to get the new state to recognize your credentials. So from my personal experience, you may have 2 things you have to work through - 1) getting your license in Canada - we have to go through NNAS - they evaluate your education curriculum, work history, and licenses - plan on this taking @ 1 year - also if you were not educated in English or French, you will have to prove language proficiency and 2) you will need to think about immigration status, have a job offer or have some way of being allowed into the country to look for work unless you are a Canadian citizen. I'm married to a Canadian, so we've applied for a spousal/family sponsored residence status - getting status straightened out also takes a while - but I did get a work permit as a temporary resident fairly quickly. Your employer can sponsor you, so it would be best to have a job already lined up, that would really speed things up immigration-wise. Best of luck!

I had to use NNAS but my application is still in the process of being evaluated - it's been a long process. In BC (and possibly all of Canada - I only paid attention to BC since that's where my in-laws live) only NNAS can be used to verify your information and get a nursing license. I took the NCLEX-RN after April 1, 2012 - so (as of February 2023) they are now accepting that as proof that my nursing school curriculum aligns with BC nursing school curriculum. I actually took the NCLEX-RN with an ADN degree - so my Capella degree isn't necessarily the one they focus on. But they want to evaluate all nursing related schooling. Capella was pretty good about sending NNAS the required information. Capella sends the curriculum information directly to the NNAS but the transcripts were tricky. I had to have them sent twice and the second time I had them send them to the NNAS with the ATTN line in the 1st line because the transcripts got lost in the shuffle somewhere and no tracking information was available (Capella uses a 3rd party to send transcripts and they do not offer tracking). That's another thing to be aware of - you have to reach out to all schools attended and coordinate them sending curriculum and transcripts as well as your last 5 years of employment. Then you need to monitor your account for receipt of those documents. If they don't arrive when expected you have to track down what went wrong. For me, Capella had the transcript trouble - with no option for tracking, I had to pay twice to have them sent. My community college where I received my associates degree needed to send them more specific information about the curriculum. And one of my employers had to send the employment verification forms 3 times - the last time I had the gal actually going to the post office herself and they paid for tracking. The whole process of applying and then doing reaching out to schools and employers took exactly 1 year. Then the NNAS hopes to get that all evaluated in 12 weeks. But they have a serious backlog - so I'm hoping to hear from them in the next month or two (my 12 weeks has passed already). On the bright side, if you get everything in within a year of applying you don't have to pay again - otherwise it is ~ $120 to renew. I've talked to their customer service folks a few times and they've all been helpful. Good luck to you!

FYI - I just reread the section on the Oregon State Board of Nursing renewal page and it says - the class/training does not have to be approved by OHA... The approved ones are just a place for you to start looking for where you can find CEUs...

I am renewing my license for the first time and I need 2hrs of CE in Cultural Competency. I took 2 classes that I thought would satisfy the requirement but when I went to print the certificate one specifically said not approved in Oregon ? Sadly, I paid for it and didn't take it right away and believe that the certification expired. So frustrating! The other classes that are on the OSBN website - a lot of them are not actually found on the links - the organization is there, talks about training, but there is no actual training link. I literally clicked on every link. One is $97 on blindness and how it affects care - not to be picky, but I'm a school nurse and for $100 I'd like for it to at least somehow relate to my population. Anyway, it has been frustrating! Can we use credits that are approved by the American Nurses Credentialing Center? It's parent organization is the American Nurses Association. Seems legit...

Yes I have a BSN. School nursing here involves case management of students with health conditions such as diabetes, severe allergies, seizures, and asthma - as well as the rest of the school population generally. I am involved with covid symptom tracking, checking on immunizations, and community health projects. I've also done 1-on-1 nursing for medically fragile children outside of the school setting, but it is another school nurse position.

I'm a school nurse in Oregon. My husband wants to move back to BC to help care for his aging parents. I've applied to have my license evaluated to be able to work in BC. Is school nursing common in BC? When I search for RN jobs in BC I usually just find hospital or long term care positions. But since hiring for school nursing is somewhat seasonal, maybe that is why I haven't seen any postings.

My husband is wanting to move closer to his aging parents. They live in BC. I've applied to get my license evaluated and hopefully be able to work up there. My question is, do they have school nurses in Canada? Or BC? It seems in the US it is all over the place what school nursing looks like... Is it like that in Canada as well?

I'm in Oregon and we have to have a delegated UAP - trained to administer insulin and glucagon - attend field trips with DM1 kiddos but often the parents will go on the field trip with them. I have 4 schools, so it is not practical (or maybe even possible) to necessarily attend each DM1 student's field trip. Each DM1 student has to have 3 staff members trained to administer insulin (count the carbs - check blood sugar - and properly calculate how much insulin to administer) to them. Those staff are trained on glucagon as well as their classroom teachers.

Well, I'm new to nursing and school nursing as well. I do not have a high school - I have 3 elementary schools and a middle school @ 2000 students total. I do think that middle school students and generally their parents are less demanding because they are used to their kids having their kids excluded due to vomiting, diarrhea, or fevers. I'm surprised how many elementary parents are surprised that we don't want their barfer at school. I was assigned schools that were close to my house - 12-15 minute max drive, one is about less than 5 minutes from my house. I was not assigned schools where my kids go on purpose because you could find out confidential information about your kids' friends and let it slip. I was actually hired to take 1 school from each nurse in the school district where I work - so I'm pretty popular with my partnership/fellow school district nurses. They have been very supportive! I work 8a-4p Mon-Friday with 30 minutes lunch, 2 15 minute breaks. I work at the school in the morning, usually through the kids' lunchtime - if they have diabetics, I will often help with them. Then I work from home on case management and covid calling. So much covid calling... I have 50-60 hours of comp time accumulated, so I'm trying to take that time. Benefits are great - free health insurance, PTO and sick time right away - though. All the holidays off. Honestly, it is a pretty great schedule. I'm employed by the education service district which supports many school districts. Only RNs are in the schools as the "school nurse" for case management in our ESD, but we have school health assistants (SHA) and LPNs that handle daily tasks or work on covid response. In my schools, several of the health assistants are Medical Assistants - it isn't a requirement but it just seems like a good fit for people. HTH!

The Oregon nurse practice act - division 45 - I have looked at a lot because of the BSN capstone project I'm working on. I'm going to say delegating to a UAP, plus the usual care planning, standards of practice, and cultural responsiveness.

Wow, I got hired at the very end of June, so the schools were all closed and I've been working on my last class for my BSN. Long story short - I've done very little to prepare for being a school nurse other than pick up a new patient who is more medically complex than my previous patient - I'm currently a private duty peds nurse. I plan on reviewing common health issues with kids as well as the immunization information but... I haven't been given my school yet, so I can't really do any research specific to that respect - like elementary, middle school, or high school - no clue. I'm comfortable working with all those ages but I imagine the focus and activities that a high school nurse handles is quite different than an elementary school nurse! I'm thinking fights, drugs, pregnancy vs stomach aches and ADHD meds - this is just from my experience working at the elementary schools and volunteer experience in the upper grades. This is just me guessing, but you are maybe overwhelming yourself with information. When you interviewed, they were aware of your work history - they have your resume, so they know they will need to provide you with training - at least, that's what my Education Service District interviewers told me. I'm in Oregon too...