Marie.C

Hi there, I moved from France to take my nursing in Canada and my mom was a nurse in France. The practice is not the same at all. You don't have a lot of responsabilities. My mom was working night shifts only on a surgical unit and had 14 patients by herself, no assistant. That was a small unit but the unit she was working on before that, she had 36 patients with one nursing assistant (12 patients each on days). I know it sounds impossible, which is why I would never work as a nurse there as if I was to get sick there, I would want to get transfered back here. About the scope of practice, you would only use your stethoscope to take a blood pressure or make sure an NG is still where it is suppose to be but you would not use it to assess the lungs, you can but if something is wrong and you notify the physician he is going to tell you that you are just a nurse and don't know anything!!! Nurses have no rights to say anything (because they are just nurses!) and the patients have no right to say anything either because the physicians are gods! Regarding the salary, I would not say it is comfortable because the COL is very high there. When I was a grad nurse, I was making as much as my mom is France after 30+ years just before she retired. A few years back, a lot of spanish nurses went to work to France. I don't know how fluent they were in french but I know that it was not a success for them. Lots of them went back to Spain because of the bad working conditions. For your question: "And possibly my most important question, how do I even get started in the process of nursing overseas?? Is there a separate RN exam for me to write?" Sorry, I don't know much about that except that the government is responsible to recognize your training and you would have to call the ddass (direction départementale des Affaires sanitaires et sociales). I think there is an exam at the end of the nursing program so nurses get a diploma from the state but there is no nursing board, no license. France is a beautiful country but it needs to change a lot. May be you could look into working in Switzerland? I don't know exactly how good it is but I know it is better than France. Good luck!

wonderful news! I wish you the best for your new job.

I pray for you and your family.

If your exam is in two months, you might want to focus on things like med/surg, peds, etc... I don't know Mosby's Comprehensive review but it must covers some pharmacology. May be somebody else can comment on that. Personally, I don't remember having lots of questions on meds but it could be different and it's always good to know the most common meds that you can find in a review book. good luck

Sorry for the wrong info, the CNA website inform about the fact that the exam only consist of multiple choice questions (As of February 2008 and until February 2010). I just saw that they were still selling the same book. I was not referring to the NCLEX guide as an only resource to study for the CRNE but to help answer multiple choice questions. I guess I could only help by giving the name of books in french that I had but it might already old!

Pinklady, did you think about suzanne's plan?

OctoberBride is right: be yourself!

Hi there, I did my training in Canada and wrote the exam 3 years ago. You need the preparation book from CNA/AIIC wich is available in french. http://bookstore.cna-aiic.ca/c267877p16717871.1.html If you want books in french you can look for Soins infirmiers medecine-chirurgie des editions beauchemins. If your english is good enough to understand what you read I would buy an NCLEX RN preparation book because the book from CNA/AIIC only have 300 multiple chose questions and 75 short answer questions. I passed the exam but if I knew at that time, I would have bought a Q&A review for NCLEX. I hope this help. good luck.

I have done cup feeding with term babies when they're not able to breastfeed but never with a preterm. Interesting!

that's a good point Pelsmith!

Yes the money is good but when we are stressed and we give a lot we sometime wish for more!

Congrats!

In Manitoba (Canada) we talk a lot about the nice working conditions in the states. Looks like it is not that nice! Over there, the ratio is 5:1 for med/surg, 1-2:1 for L&D and ICU. We don't realize how lucky we are I guess!

I am an ICU nurse form Canada. In the short term, I dream about passing the NCLEX, long term: be a NP

Hi, I graduated from the university of Ottawa and I am in the US.