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That's not what OP said. And it is interesting that NEWBIE nurses take so much offense to what we older ones have fought so hard to maintain. Seasoned nurses who lived through the mass importation of RN's during the 1980'S then again in the 1990's know how quickly our wages, demand, status and patient care can drop when the government goes back to the old importation of RN's. WE older nurses fight to protect our hard won turf. The US nurses don't 'blame' the state of nursing in the US on immigrants. Far from it! In fact the reason nurses want to come here is because US nurses fought hard to stay in demand and to keep our wages at close to the the highest in the world. Do you realize how bad conditions and wages are for nurses in many other countries? WE FIGHT EVERYDAY TO MAINTAIN THAT HIGH WAGE AND RESPECT FOR US NURSES. YOU NEWBIES HAVE BENEFITED GREATLY FROM THE STATUS AND WAGES WE FOUGHT AND FIGHT TO MAINTAIN. I promise you it can all be gone tomorrow when they lift visa restrictions. The US hospitals got the government to do it twice before. Importation of nurses hurts US nurses plain and simple!

hmmmm like another poster said i too haven't seen a slew of people claiming immigration is the "root" cause of the rn problem. i call bullhockey on your 'root cause' inflammatory claim. no one here says that's the nursing problem's root cause. many in the us are for very tight controls on immigration. we were welcoming of all poor and down trodden for many years but the us started clamping our boarders down when people started flying planes into buildings killing thousands of our citizens. also you state "i took my undergrad/graduate level studies in the united states and i would constantly be told to 'go back where you came from, there are no jobs for you' then you contradict yourself an by stating the opposite in saying you were utterly surprised to learn on an many in the us are all for clamping down on immigration. and to this inflammatory claim "raise you entry point to a bsn and then you can complain about people taking your jobs" ummm many filipino nurses i've known constantly boasted that the bsn is mandatory for their education yet their nursing education is vastly inferior to any the us ad or bsn education and training. we aren't crying for uk or filipino bsn because we think they are better educated and trained. they aren't. btw i too have a bsn and a secondary bs degree.

^This! But as someone else said I'm not a student, only an RN who lives with the realities (not conspiracies) of our profession. Also like many here I DO take responsibility for any career choice mistakes I've made...But I try to make things better through public education of the problems of our profession.--Allnurses.com has been a great help in that regard.

Something is fishy about your question and the very odd statement that you "passed' the NCLEX RN application. No one here has treated you unprofessionally as you claim. You say you graduated from school in the Philippines so I suspect you WELL know that caliotter3 is correct in saying that you need to ask your question in the international forum. There was a time when the general forum was almost taken over by Filipino RN grads asking how to become RN's in the US. Now as you most likely know, AN wants such questions asked in the international forum.

Very bad idea. I'm not even sure if TOS allows us to give advise on BON issues. That's how it used to be here on allnurses. Good luck op. With persistence you'll find a nursing job.

Agree with the group who say both orders in your examples were VERY poorly written. The nurse was smart to question the orders. You're not smart to laugh and post about someone's diligence.

It doesn't matter that you don't care about doctor's and dentists needing licenses in each state. I was using it as an example of HOW professionals are licensed. I guess you're a new nurse and never heard that we already have compact states with more joining each day. My license is multi-state. LPN's can also have multi-state licenses. See link Map of NLC States

Do you expect each state you wish to work in to regulate and govern your practice for free. Nothing in life is free. It costs the state money to discipline and regulate nurses. Physicians, Dentists realtors etc need to apply and pay to license in every state they work in. They have no compact states like nursing. The poster who said think of it like a drivers license--is correct.

Well said. This ad is sad and could prompt unnecessary suspicion.

This ad is so wrong. I know a good male ED RN with 16 yrs experience who had a spotless record. He had a bogus BON complaint filed against him by a drunk combative patient. (Long story short, this RN held the patient back because he was swinging and punching a staff member. A newbie nurse misinterpreted the situation and sided with the patient and claimed the experienced ED RN was "too rough in her opinion".) It cost the experienced RN $20,000.00 in legal defense fees fighting the BON complaint. He still practices and is an excellent nurse but he and his RN wife will never be the same. The bogus BON complaint has changed how he and his wife practice nursing. Now they are practicing "paranoid" of any complaint. The complaint and clearing his name has very negatively effected every aspect of their lives. Thanks to this NCSBN ad we will probably all practice a little paranoid. Being that overly cautious and defensive WILL negatively effect care.

Think of the diabetic patient without any access to his meds while the nurse is sleeping or staring at the wall. - Then report her. Call you BON to see if you have to give your name to report her.

Agree.

Usually you need a social security number to work in the US. As for foreign nurse sponsorship you'll get more specific information on the Philippine forum of this site. Tons of nurses there are looking for ways to become US citizens now that we have visa retrogression. For non US citizens to be sponsored you generally need to be a NP with advanced experience.

Best to have a job before moving. Also you must check with the BON and hospitals as to any requirements you (possibly) might have to meet before working in an acute setting in the US. It's easy to keep a state license active and in good standing while living away yet not meet the state practice laws or the individual requirements many hospital's have for current US acute care experience.

No it ISN'T right. PA, CO and OH boards of nursing should be ashamed of themselves. Op should just jump some "extra hoops" you say? I sincerely doubt it will be that easy. Colorado's board should have told the nursing students ENTERING school that they WOULD BE asked this question prior to obtaining a license. Interesting how CO's Natzi BON is letting OP sweat it out for being honest about seeking good mental health care.

Personally I've known many highly skilled EXTREMELY competent nurses who DO NOT buy into the "Caring Theory of Nursing" as proposed by Watson.

I know someone who got her license last December and is doing CNA work while looking for an RN position. After graduation she spent 6 months applying for jobs but after living without a paycheck and staying home for so long she accepted a hospital based CNA position.

I've been on 2 nursing sites since 1999. (Had to change my log on here once because I forgot it and had a new ISP and email.) I think the term racist will get this thread deleted soon so I see no reason to waste my time posting. It's a huge time suck for people to reply to these threads then have them deleted because someone didn't like it that another poster didn't agree with them. (The thread that had 138 replies didn't have an inflammatory word in the header yet someone must have complained and gotten it deleted. Sorry I wasted my valuable time reading it and posting. Now the term "racist" in this thread header is wrong, not being used correctly and it is offensive.)

You know it's for this reason I always empty my pockets before clocking out. I worked with a new RN who went through a similar ordeal for making a dumb but -I think- honest mistake. Sad that they give more consideration to an addict who admits to stealing drugs from patients than to someone who simply was too new to have the organizational skills and focus to work on a busy medical surgical unit.

Obviously people need to make their own decisions and weigh all the options when it comes to changing careers. Personally I think if you're older it's smart to look at debt incurred while in school vs prime earning yrs one has left. Yes there are some non-clinical options in nursing but not as many as I'd hoped and they don't pay well. I left a corporate job to become an RN in my early 30's. I wanted a job that would give me more of a feeling of fulfilment and purpose. But after 12 yrs of working as an RN I realized that often I didn't feel I had the time, support and resources to do nearly enough for my patients. Slowly I started to realize that my physical and emotional exhaustion from nursing was also forcing me to short change my family. So in the early yrs I job hopped a lot looking for a good "fit". After 1 yr of f/t nsg work in a LTC followed by 2 yrs f/t hospital work, then a switch back to f/t LTC, then yet another job change back to f/t acute setting....I was STILL never able to feel like I was fully able to de-stress from the work responsibilities and the many conflicts I witnessed between my co-workers. Often at home I felt like I was either a little 'zoned out' or I was rehashing and ruminating on things that had happened at work. When I started hearing call bells and phones ringing in my sleep, I realized I needed to switch to part-time or prn hrs. So like ShiphrahPuah pointed out, not everyone can afford to work p/t but for me that was the solution. Everyone considering this field just has to go into it with eyes wide open, weighing all the pros and cons. It was tough being a new nurse with little support 12 yrs ago. with more hospitals cutting budgets, I suspect it hasn't gotten easier for the grads of today. fwiw - I wish but in all honesty I don't see the hospital budget cuts getting better, or the economy turning around within 3 yrs.

Lots of trust, empathy, and being in tune with how others were feeling was always my forte. After my very first RN job in a nursing home I realized I was going to have to become tough, somewhat hardened and less empathetic. The year that I worked there (before burning out) I was doing my job plus a lot of the CNA's work. In addition a lot of the the smarter manipulative pts would play me. Now I try to show caring and empathy but I know there are times I have to be tough.

(((hugs)))That is so sad. I agree about 20/20 hindsight. At my last hospital a similar situation happened with a nurse. I didn't know her because she worked a different unit. It makes me very sad to repeat the details so I'll just say that I now stay on the look out for signs of suicidal thoughts. As a person who once went through a bad event and spiraled into depression I often recommend therapy. It helped me.

I agree that nursing instructors need a big pay increase to encourage more to go into teaching. And we should do a lot more to retain experienced nurses. The floor I work on in 80% RN's with less than 2 yrs exp. on day shift. On nights we have all new grads with In answer to the question about how the shortage has effected me--too much stress eventually wore me down. I worked f/t med/surg for 6 yrs. Working short and always feeling inadequate and depressed about not being able to do enough for my patients got to me. I started feeling too exhausted to be a good Mom so I went to part-time for a yr. It was less money and I paid more for my health plan, but working two 12 hr shifts/wk gave me a chance to see things from a brighter perspective. I'm back to f/t but I now realize that when I feel like I don't have time enough to do everything my patient deserve, I know at least I tried.

cn2007rn, I related to much of what you posted. I'm glad them Paxil is helping. What depresses me is what others said, In nursing you can't have a slightly off day. You are always expected to be on. You must always CYA. Can't trust many co-workers. Can't trust management. Extreme amt of responsibility with sadly little authority. The nurse is the easiest one to blame when anything goes wrong. For example if the MD or pharmacy screw up, and we don't catch the error. It legally becomes our error. I'm often fearful for my license. I don't like to socialize because work takes all the energy I have. One family member even told me that nursing has made me "mean". I used to be known for my sweet nature. I have no good answers. But I've also started on an SSRI and have been trying to find other work options.

For counseling I've always heard that a masters is the baseline of education. Generally after obtaining the masters and then 3000 hrs of work in the field you can take a certification exam. For example with a masters in SW and 2 yrs of post masters work in the field you are allowed to sit for the cert exam to be become LCSW and do counseling. Good luck.