aura_of_laura

How had you been handling your guard PT tests? Can't speak for the Army, but I can't see the AF commissioning you on a permanent profile. Long-term inability to run is enough to get you med-boarded out, even once you've already got your commission - any profile that lasts longer than a year warrants an automatic med board. You can always apply for a waiver, but that could be months of waiting to be disappointed. From AFI 10-248: "4.2.7.2. Members who are physically unable to participate in a fitness/exercise/training programfor greater than one year due to medical conditions should be presumed to be non-deployable, non-assignable and MEB processing will be initiated NLT one year after the first profile for the affecting condition IAW AFI 48-123, Medical Examination and Standards."

I'd recommend checking with your local reserve or ANG unit - that's something that varies by location, can't say I've ever seen it done by active duty units.

I think you're jumping the gun a bit - you will get to experience a wide variety of nursing roles when in school, which will help you find where your interests really are. And the great thing about nursing is that you aren't typecast - you can work in psych for a while, work in oncology, ICU, L&D, and so on. Heck, you can work more than one job at a time, too. Psych isn't all about therapy and touchy-feely stuff. It's about keeping your patients safe when they can't (or don't want to) do it for themselves. Depending on the setting, it's highly physical, and you definitely give your share of injections and get splashed withenough bodily fluids. I've been spat on, (intentionally) bled on, vomited, urinated, and **** upon, had used feminine products thrown at me - washed my hair at work more times than I can count! And don't forget the death threats and insults upon one's person. But I wouldn't trade psych nursing for anything, because I really love this population. Don't put too much stock in personal experience, either - many psych professionals have their own battles, but this isn't always positively translated into good patient care. As I'm sure you know from your current degree, psych professionals have to be very self-aware, and to be on guard about how our personal experiences are affecting how we view our patients (transference, etc). Thick skin is crucial in any nursing role, but especially in psych. What do you mean by not being able to volunteer in the hospital as a psych nurse? RNs are RNs - we're just specialized, but are fully qualified to do anything another RN can do.

In response to RayRN87: Four years of civilian RN (not BSN) experience are needed to come in as an O-2. You get 50% credit for any civilian nursing experience. Re: aei09a: You don't need to work med-surg first. L & D is one of the specialties that they funnel new grads into. The competition for specialties varies based on the needs of the Air Force - right now there is a push to increase psych RN positions by 50% in the next few years. Flight nursing is highly competitive, with many nurses waiting years to get a spot. L&D, not so much. Re: Medik231: From the description of your program, it doesn't sound like you would be qualified to join the AF until you complete it, unless they issue you a BSN part of the way through. And even then, it wouldn't be a good option - once you commission as a 46N, you're not guaranteed an NP slot just because you get the degree, and you could find yourself in a job you clearly don't want. In the Air Force, you'd probably work in the clinics for than a hospital - NPs tend to be used for primary care more than hospitalists. Are you getting your DNP? That's also a big factor. I don't know that I've heard of an NP getting deployed as an RN, but I know other types of APRNs do - I've known several CNSs who have had to work the floor, and any advanced role they wanted to pursue (like staff education) was an extra duty. If you want to work with TBI and TBI research, I'll pass on the info my Chief Nurse told me - go Green. The Army is much more on the cutting edge of TBI stuff, and there are more opportunities to get hands-on experience. The vast majority of TBI patients I see are young veterans, not active duty, and usually not Air Force.

Really? That seems a little odd to me.For active duty, you can't even work as a psych RN without a few yearsof experience under your belt, and then you have to wait a year toapply (and another year before you can attend if accepted) for AFITfunding to go to Psych NP school - and that's highly competitive.And your circumstance doesn't sound that unique- there are tons ofnurses (with a lot of experience) who are desperate to join the AF(Reserves, ANG, and active duty) with a goal of becoming nursepractitioners. The thing with military nurses is that we're ALL highperformers with excellent grades and a lot to recommend us, so I'm notsure why they'd rewrite the book for you.Also, I would definitely recommend floor nursing for a few years in avariety of settings before moving on to your MSN or DNP - it'sinvaluable experience. Especially if you plan to treat militarymembers, where a prompt, accurate intervention can be crucial tonational and international security, you'll need crackerjack clinicalskills, and nursing school just doesn't prepare you for real psych.The AF doesn't give you that clinical experience either, especially ifyou're Guard or Reserves - you need to build that experienceelsewhere, because you'll be sitting in a clinic, seeing patients onceor twice a month, not working with thousands of patients a year, likein an inpatient setting.This is coming from an active duty AF psych nurse with five years ofdiverse MH experience.Whatever happens, best of luck, but I'd take what your recruiter sayswith a grain (or teaspoon) of salt.

Hmm. I personally know at least one new AF nurse who went to school overseas (Russia), not sure if it was accredited by those agencies... A second opinion never hurts.

I concur with wbtcrna. If you go of your own free will, your command will never even know unless something comes out that could be risky - like hallucinations, or homicidal thoughts. It actually shows good judgment to meet those problems head-on. Another good option is talking to a chaplain, if that's more comfortable. Burn-out is so, so common- I know I've been there, and so have probably 75% of the AF nurses I know. Sometimes changing assignments isn't possible, I know a lot of nurses who've waited 6 or 7 years to cross train or PCS. Do you have many officer friends? I've found other officers can really help put things in perspective, it's nice to get together and vent, but they can also offer advice to help you out... I have a few from other specialties or careers that meet for dinner or games and drinks pretty regularly, which has really saved my sanity!It's so important to look out for yourself and your mental health, because no one else will.

Feel free to PM me, I'd be glad to answer your questions :-) As for Keesler and Elgin, no, there are no MH nursing jobs. A lot of recruiters seem to confuse MH RNs with MH NPs or techs, who go pretty much anywhere.

There should be slots at Travis coming open, I know we have a few people PCSing in the next month or two. I'll PM you if I find out more. Best of luck in the boards!

A few questions I forgot to respond to: Night shift - We all have to do a rotation on nights. On my unit, we usually work two months of night shift, and then 4-6 months of days. It does vary, though - I haven't been on nights since last June. Charting - We use almost exclusively electronic charting. WBTCRNA, I don't speak for the whole Air Force, nor for the experience of all military nurses. No doubt your experience is very different than my own - as a CRNA, you are in a totally distinct career field. In your specialty, you experience all of those things that I expected (and was told to expect) when I joined - travel, deployments, advanced training, having your skills desperately needed. RN4Life2, The mental health nursing profession is a small world, and in the AF, it's very, very small. You will know (and most likely work with) everyone in your specialty - and a lot of them share my sentiments. In the civilian sector, you can write your own ticket as a qualified, experienced psych nurse. I have worked for some wonderful hospitals that challenged me professionally, valued and improved my clinical skills, and offered really good compensation. I'm not particularly motivated by money (it's certainly not why I joined the AF), but even as an O-5, I would not make what my civilian counterparts make (at least in California), and there is always the issue of time commitment - we work significantly more than civilians. There is nothing that I hate more than wasting time, but we don't have enough work to keep us busy - we put in the hours (72 in the last seven days, myself), but we are so overstaffed/underutilized that it's shameful. I guess it all comes down to motive. If one is joining primarily for benefits, retirement, and job security, I recommend the AF. In the world of mental health, you will serve far more patients (and a much greater variety of patients) at a good civilian hospital, and the care will almost certainly be superior.

They are opening an inpatient mental health unit at Elmendorf late next year, to serve PACAF (this will allow PACAF - Japan, Korea, Alaska) to keep their people in majcom for med-boards, instead of sending them to Travis patient squadron. Unfortunately, PACAF transfers makes up a large percent of our active duty patients, so I predict that we'll really be dominated by VA patients. Our nurse-patient ratio is frequently 1:2, 1:6 at the very maximum. The other day I had 11 direct care staff (techs and nurses) caring for 4 depressed VA patients - not suicidal, just sleepy and depressed. And that wasn't counting the two NCOs, two nurse managers, two psychiatrists, two psychologists, social worker, occupational therapist, and unit secretary. And because VA staff are contractually obligated to get 40 hours per week, and AF staff are free labor, we don't send any staff home. LVNs pass almost all of the meds, techs run the groups. RNs go to treatment teams and kind of supervise, though really the NCO shift leader supervises the techs. We cut our unit from 20 to 12 beds last year because we couldn't fill beds. Even now, our census stays right around 6-8 most of the time. Length of stay is >10 days, typically, and it is not uncommon for our VA patients to remain for 1-3 months awaiting conservatorship and/or placement. At this time, there are no positions for MH nurses to deploy. As for assignments, most recruiters assume that MH nurses can go the same places as a MH tech. Techs work in clinics, which are at almost every base, and they man the clinics overseas, too. Same with SWs and psychiatrists. We only work inpatient. There is a small possibility to work with the Army in Germany, but it's usually just one opening for a senior Captain or Major. The AF really doesn't know how to use MH nurses, and it's a kind of a dead-end career field. Your options will be to become a psych NP, which will allow you to work in clinics, or to go into middle management. To ever make Sq/CC or higher, you have to have critical care experience or be a flyer. Even my flight CC is an OR nurse. I was personally told by General Sinischalchi that the AF will not use a psych CNS role (and even the CC CNSes get stuck working as floor nurses), "because inpatient MH makes up such a small part of the Air Force healthcare system."

I didn't go through NTP because I already had several years of nursing experience - I think anyone who has less than one year of RN practice goes through NTP. There are only a few locations to do NTP, Scottsdale, AZ, Wright-Patt, OH, and I think in Florida. We used to do it at Travis, but I think they're stopping it after our current class. I think that they sometimes use civilian hospitals, but you'll be with a cohort of military nurses, with an instructor guiding you through everything. It's very much like a preceptorship, from what I understand. I think it's 10 weeks... My COT class was 5 weeks (about 33 total days, I think). They're talking about making it longer to match the BOT class (which is 10 weeks, I think), but I don't know what the time table is for that to go into effect. You don't actually apply for NTP, you're applying for a commission. Time from application to notice of acceptance is pretty standard - about a month after the board date, give or take a few weeks. Time from acceptance (you can commission any time after that) to COT depends on what slots are available. I had four weeks between getting my acceptance and leaving for COT. Some people have 8 months, just depends. As for specialties, as a new nurse you don't really have options - L&D or med-surg. If you have more than a year ICU experience, you may be able to work ICU. Most ICU and ED nurses are 1LTs or Captains, and lots of Majors. I think they even want clinic nurses to have experience, since they do telephone triage. Coming through NTP, you'll all be the same AFSC - 46N1 - general nurse. Some specialties will change that AFSC (I'm a 46P3, psych nurse), some just add an identifier (ICU nurses get an E Enabler identifier, I think). You'll usually get the opportunity to specialize after a few years. Flight nursing is very competitive (almost everyone coming in wants to be a flight nurse). There's a big push for all inpatient nurses and staff to wear scrubs. At DGMC, we wear the UOD in to the hospital and change into blue scrubs. We have to change every time we step outside the hospital. Most clinic staff don't change. As for bases, I know a few new nurses that got to go to Alaska, and one that went to England for their first duty station. It doesn't hurt to request it. Lots of nurses go to Travis, Lackland, and Florida, though they can go almost everywhere. Travis is a great base, and we have the biggest AF hospital (which isn't huge).

I had a Sq CC pull someone back from AFIT the week before they were supposed to start (after the almost two year application and waiting process). There were people that outranked the Sq CC advocating for that person, but the Sq CC had the final decision. It would be awfully hard to get into AFIT without your CC's support.

They told me the same thing about going overseas, that I'd almost certainly get to because of my experience (my whole dream sheet was in Europe) - not until I got out of COT did I find out that mental health TECHs can go overseas, but mental health nurses can only go to CA and TX. The nice thing is that you get to find out your first station before you commission, so if you get sent to Minot, ND, you can alway back out :-) It is difficult to get the AF to pay you to go to school as your assignment (AFIT), but you can always go in your spare time. That's what I'm doing. They do offer tuition assistance, but it comes with added commitment, but there's a lot of nuance with it. Most units work 12 hour shifts, "Panama schedule" (3 on, 2 off, 2on, 3 off), but depending on your unit you may do a lot of on-call time, too - you're pretty much on call 24/7 as a military nurse, but some specialties do a lot more overtime (like ICU). We also come in for a lot of extra duties (usually an extra 10 hours a week). Pay is set by rank, and we don't get paid for overtime, meetings, holidays, etc. I notice this the most when I'm working nights and have to be in for 3 different meetings on my day off! If you work in a clinic, you work M-F, 9 hour days. Unless you specialize before commissioning (which I don't know if they have an oncology specialty), you don't usually get to pick what your specialty is, or where you get stationed. For instance, my husband was a CC/tele nurse as a civilian, and now works in a clinic answering phones all day.

Hi, ATLRN! I went to COT last January, so I've been working at my base since last February. Travis AFB is great! It's close to San Francisco, the beach, Napa, the redwoods, the mountains - really, everything. And the weather is ALWAYS beautiful. My biggest recommendation is to find someone in your specialty (and preferably at the same base) and pick their brain before you sign on the dotted line - recruiters don't know anything, and even the Chief Nurse interview will give you a lot of pie-in-the-sky nonsense - it's been a long time since the Chief Nurse has worked on a floor. Things that I didn't expect when I joined: 1. The hospitals are small- like, community hospital small. I work for the "flagship" hospital of the AF, and we just got a cardiac surgery unit last year. It's a very small work environment, which a lot of people like. I like the fast-paced hustle and bustle of a big teaching hospital. 2. Most of our patients are VA and retired, with some Active Duty mixed in. I thought that I'd get great exposure to cutting edge mental health care, with lots of active duty with post-combat issues, like TBI and PTSD - 85% of my patients are homeless Vietnam vets there for placement. Also, we work with VA and contract nurses, and they make double what we do. 3. There isn't much camaraderie among officers. The enlisted side is tight-knit, and people tend to make friends for life. Maybe it's because most officers come in in the middle of their careers, and already have families and such, and we're such a small part of the AF, but you REALLY have to try to get to know people. 4. Many people fret about deployment before they commission - once they get in, they look forward to deployment as a break from the politics and drama of everyday military nursing. 5. Due to the cost of moving people around, there is much less PCSing than the old days. All hospital personnel at my base have to stay four years before they can be PCS'd - and, oh, look, that's another 2 year commitment! Same goes for going to school, or changing specialties - it's tough to get it approved. It's nothing for a nurse to spend 8-10 years at one base. For my specialty, I can only go two places - that was a shocker! On the positive side, it's a good job, and your AF coworkers will probably be awesome. Benefits are pretty good, but you earn them. Best of luck to you :-)