13th stranger

thanks for the replies guys. sofia*26, can you tell me more about Oz accepting nurses even with minimal experience? I'm keeping my eyes open, reading the classifieds of the best dailies for related stuff, but it seems i can't find what i'm searching for. hehe please PM me what, when, where, how you did it, and how much it cost. thanks a lot. and again, thanks guys. yeah, God has other plans. better get that through my thick skull. hehe.

is it practical to keep on hoping, or should i accept that it is not my fate now? ever since i graduated 4 years ago, everything i did was for my overseas career fulfillment. of course, you all know what hindrances there are. so here i am, a USRN finished with packet 2 in the immigration process, still in the Phils, thankfully working as a nurse, although not in a hospital...my US papers are tied up, as with thousands of others. i'm opening my eyes to NZ, but unfortunately, i lack the funds.. tried searching for jobs in SP or Oz, but i lack the hospital experience..tried looking at the rest of the countries in Asia or ME, lack of vacancies...hehe. When i passed my exams one after the other, i did feel blessed, like it was somehow my fate to go abroad, and that this dream was somehow within reach. That was years ago. now, i'm not so sure. i feel so dispirited. okay, that's it. i just wanted to vent. thanks.

hmmm...sacrifices, sacrifices.. for my foreign exams, since i wasn't receiving much help from my parents financially, i had to save up for the finances myself. so yeah, my sacrifices include not going out during paydays, not going along with outings, not spending too much for my little perk-me-ups, all to finance my exams. yeah, i passed all of them, so it was worth it. but then, i'm still stuck here, so sometimes i wonder what would have happened if i opted to "enjoy" my money for fun instead of being so scrooge-like with it all the time. hehe

here's what i understand of it. GWA is your average grade when you graduated. Add up all your averages for each semester in college, then divide the total by the number of semesters you had. some hospitals are requiring it, because, (in my opinion) , with the sheer number of nurses applying for them, they can afford to be picky and choose to entertain only the cream of the crop, those with higher GWAs than the rest. of course, this makes sense, since GWA reflects your grades in college, and thus the kind of student you were, and the kind of nurse you will be. as to the acceptable GWA..hmmm..it depends. in my school, 1 is the highest grade, and 5 is the failing mark, so obviously, the closer to 1 my GWA is, the higher average i had. however, i know of some schools who have it the other way around, with 5 as the highest mark. you can ask for your GWA from your school for a fee. they'll give you this official document stating your gwa and its equivalent meaning, if it falls under "failed", "good", "excellent", etc. hope this helped.

what an ignorant comment from someone who supposedly knows the state of nurses. it's bordering on ridiculous. what a shame. tsk tsk. he should sign up to be a member of this online comunity so he could read and be updated by the real situation of real nurses.

to all those venting out, i sympathize and i understand and i strongly agree! yes, i'm a nurse, yes, i'm supposed to be compassionate and everything and make service the reason why i took up this course and everything..but hey.. i spent years of my life taking up this course so that in the future, i could be EMPLOYED, not EXPLOITED. and by employed, i actually mean a job that is somehow appropriate for a licensed professional...with the appropriate benefits, working conditions, etc. otherwise, i'd just have stayed home and trained to be a house helper. yes, no one forced me to take up nursing, and no one is forcing me to be a volunteer now. but just because no one is forcing me doesnt mean that i can't have an opinion on what's happening to us nurses here. yeah, just also venting. thanks. :)

i see. the general consensus seems to be that attaining an immigrant visa would take around 5 years. would that be for those who start the filing now? what about those who started a year or two ago? thankies.

i keep seeing on the news the downward trend of the US economy, or if i misinterpreted that, then the bankruptcy of some of America's largest investment banks/ insurance companies, etc..(Lehman Bros., AIG, etc) anyway, i would just like to know what impact this has on the visas, if any? will this also affect the availability of health care jobs in the US? thanks.

hello! i'm curious if there is a licensure exam for working as a nurse in qatar? i tried searching, but the threads were quite old and i'm not sure if it's still the same today... much thanks.

ah okay..when you say "specialised" does it mean your hospital experience has to be in a special unit, like ER/ OR/ ICU/ etc? what do you mean "have a bachelor's"? i assume that is a bachelor's degree in nursing? all RNs here have bachelor degrees in nursing..once we graduate college it is stated there in each diploma that each is a "bachelor of science in nursing". but perhaps you may have meant another thing.. ? :wink2:

i see....so in the event that i actually know someone who is in that position right now, let's say, a friend whose US hospital employer had already petitioned an immigrant visa for her, and in fact she's already for packet 3, but again, there's the retro, so the US hospital decided to sponsor a working visa for her now...is there something wrong with the way that case is handled? is it legal and possible for the US hospital to do the "switch"?

hey everyone! there are some visa issues which confuse me and i would appreciate any clarifications. the US is in retrogression, so this affects the granting of immigrant visas, right? would it be possible to "switch" from an immigrant visa to a working visa? like say, for example, if i am a nurse with an employer already sponsoring my immigrant visa, but because of the retro, i am "stuck" here in the Philippines for a few more years.. so in order for me to enter the US faster and work there sooner, my employers file for a working visa instead.. and if it is possible, then why not use working visas for all nurses? unlike PTs, OTs, and workers in other fields, why do RNs have to use immigrant visas? thanks.

you are not alone! i don't know if it helps any, but i just want to let you know that i get a bit depressed, too. i tried applying at hospitals, but it was futile. where i live, the hospitals have resorted to hiring only their own graduates. those who haven't are not hiring, and won't be hiring any time soon. they've got loads of apps stacked up in their HR offices. i applied for jobs related to nursing just for the sake of having an income, but even that seems a bit difficult. i cheer myself up by acknowledging that i am not alone in this. and i don't blame myself for a lack of effort. keep on trying and pray for the best!

hello pips! took the nclex last may 13, got my results on may 16. 1. what are the materials that you used? - saunders q&a review mostly. tried reading saunders comprehensive review, but i didn't get to finish it. used also notes from cgfns exam. 2. how many hours per day did you study? how many questions did u answer per day? - i trained myself to regularly answer at least 100 questions per day a month before the exam, then went up to at least 200 questions exactly a week before. i devoted at least 3 hours a day for reviewing, never more than 5 hours. 3. how many days or months in total you studied before taking the exam? a month and a half. 4. what are the specific strategies that you used or the the test taking skills you applied during the exam? - honestly, if you train yourself enough in answering the questions, the exam itself will feel like another one of your review sessions. and in the same way, you never know how it will turn out. so the key here is to practice answering. 5. take one or take two? at 75 questions in under an hour, take one! piece of advice to takers: once you've figured out your review strategy and style, work with it and stop comparing yourself to others. you yourself know your strengths and weaknesses, and what works for others may not work for you. know yourself first. while waiting to be admitted for the exam, i talked with a schoolmate who also happened to have the same test schedule, and we got to talking about our review. when i told her i had reviewed for a month and a half, she shook her head disapprovingly and said i should have studied for over a year. as it turned out, i passed at 75, and i dont know about her, but i heard she ran out of time. i hope she passed. but anyway, it's different for everyone, so just do your best.

take the nclex here. so once you arrive in the US you can work as a nurse right away. i think it'll be much harder to pass it there because aside from the usual anxiety taking an exam has, you have to deal with adjusting to practically everything. (that, however, varies from person to person). i take it you just passed the board? congratulations if that's the case. you can now proceed to taking further exams, and gaining experience by working in a hospital. good luck.

lots of countries are hiring, and i had the idea of applying, too, so i could work there while waiting for the retrogression to be lifted. BUT, as with the countries i applied in (middle east, singapore), they preferred those with experience. since a lot of experienced nurses here had the same idea as i did to apply for these countries, of course i was not among the top picks. (i had no years of experience to boast of) there are countries not requiring experience, like NZ, but they require cash, and that's something i don't have either. check out the ads in the news, and just try showing up at hirings and stuff. you'll learn a lot from them, and they give you options, too. good luck.

based on my experience, it takes a few months for them to send out your results, and even longer, depending on the quality of your post office. the oathtaking comes first. however, if you do need your results on paper right now, you can go to PRC and ask for a certification that you took and passed the board, or a certification stating what scores you garnered in the board exam. it takes only a few days for them to release that, but then you'd have to pay fees. hope this helped.

i honestly am disappointed with the PNA. ever since i became a registered nurse two years ago, i have not availed of, participated in, nor even heard of of any activity from the PNA. perhaps they might say ignorance is not an excuse, but when i say i am ignorant of the purpose of the PNA, i believe the fault is not mine alone. every year since becoming registred, we pay 300php (each nurse) to get the PNA card, the purpose of which is something i have yet to understand. i pay to be recognized as someone part of the group, but the group is not showing me anything to acknowledge my membership with them.

hello everyone. im applying for a visascreen certificate by myself and im not quite sure on how to go about it. i've read the handbook already.:typing for those items on the forms that are not applicable to me, do i leave them blank or write NA? one item goes like this: i worked in ________ as a ______ for _______ years. if, in my case, my experience is yet to reach one year, do i write 0 years?

hmmm... personally, i wouldn't say anything close to the nurses' salary here being "well above the minimum wage requirements". maybe it's just me, but really, i just can't bring myself to agree.

this is per month. this is based on my salary when i was a nurse. minus the taxes, i took home around Php 5,000 per month.

there's a big difference between the salaries in public and private hospitals. public hospitals have bigger salaries. i know of a private hospital which gives a starting salary of around Php 5,900. your "one day" there is more than "one month" here.

thank you so much! will definitely do that. i hope this works out. by the way, the UAE is made up of 7 emirates, right? so, would it be correct to assume that more or less the 7 of them hold the same culture and policies? what exactly is an "open country?":mad:

hey guys. working as a nurse in the UAE, specifically in ras al-kaimah, is one of my options right now. can anyone who has ever worked there tell me what the working conditions are like? or the culture? i am a roman catholic, by the way, so does this raise an issue with the UAE being a Muslim country? please help. or even if you haven't worked there, what do you know about the country? thank you so much.

hey, i have a question. i'm still far from this step, but this thread got me thinking. what if a nurse wishing to go to the US had not been vaccinated with BCG when she was little, but then she doesnt show any signs of tuberculosis, active or otherwise? would this be a point against her? by the way, im also curious, if a nurse wishes to go overseas but not the US, does she have to go through the exact same procedure (medical exam specifically at St. Luke's), or do the requirements vary from country to country?