Mike32110

I do appreciate your advice by the way. I just read something online that contradicted it, however, I read further and found out that there is an exception. I guess when I apply for jobs I'd have to write "Florida RN License in Progress (Pending SSN)" on my resume and hope for the best. When I pass the NCLEX, I will make sure to add that on my resume as well, so they know that all I am waiting on is a job offer. Would it be more practical doing research and finding a highly underserviced area to look for jobs?

The only thing that has changed is that I was not aware I would need a SSN to get a license, and it seems that you CAN apply for a SSN in order to get a visa if you have proof that all other licensing requirements are met. I am going to talk with a consulat in the next few days, plus i'll be down in Florida next week so maybe I can find someone there that has been through the whole process. Thanks.

So then how are Canadians working down there?

Hey everyone. I am in the process of moving to the United States to become an RN down there, after practicing for almost four years in Canada. I am getting really confused by the whole process, and somewhat intimidated now. I am extremely confused as it seems that in order to get your license, you must have a SSN. in order to get a SSN I need a visa. In order to get a visa, I need a license. I have been looking into moving to Florida, so I was wondering if it is just some stakes that require a SSN for a license? It seems that the process would be to get a license, get a visa, get a SSN, get a job. This would be great because I could then apply for a job when I am fully able to work. Any help is appreciated! Thanks

Thanks for all of the helpful information everyone! It really answered a lot of questions. So it seems that you can apply for your greencard ANYTIME during either a H1B or TN visa? And from my research on Florida Uni's, they generally require 1 year residency (and if you are not a citizen, they need 1 year of you working towards your citizenship, which I believe would be 1 year of greencard?). I know that it is only state Universities that do this, but it does help in the big picture. Regarding the taxation status, I should elaborate more on my life plan. Canada has a TON of great benefits, such as socialized health care, but at the end of the day we all pay for it. I do a lot of investing in real estate/stocks, and continuing on my current trajectory, in a couple of years my investment income will exceed my wage (its already about 50%). Taxes in Canada are much higher than the US, but we get things like healthcare and a good canadian pension plan. My rationale is that even at my current income level, the long term costs of health insurance would be less than the differences in Canadian to US taxes. Furthermore, the differences between US and Canadian taxes are MUCH more pronounced in the higher tax brackets, furthering my beleif that long term for financial reasons living in the US makes more sense. Also, when I am ready to retire I would probably rather be in a place like Florida than Calgary as the biggest perks for me living in Canada right now are snowboarding and ice-hockey- two things that I wont likely be doing in my 70s :). I hope that the last paragraph somewhat explains my rationale! So starting from where I am right now, here is my anticipated timeline. Let me know if I am way off. -Spend at least a month living in Florida, job shadowing nurses, and talking to managers regarding job oppertunities (planning on driving down in a week) -Apply for licensing with board of Florida, send transcripts, fingerprints, and criminal record checks. I guess in like 2-3 months after this, I would get a NCLEX writing date (please let me know if it is less than this time, as I was planning on using the waiting period to do some much needed studying). -Pass NCLEX, get license in the mail (maybe 1-2 weeks later?) -go down to Florida and start renting, no visa needed at first due to just tourism for now. Then apply for jobs in area. Hopefully get interviews and a job offer within a month. -apply to US for TN visa, send license and job offer. Apply for social insurance number? (I used to live in the US when I was aged 10-14, not sure if i would have had a SSN) I am also not sure if I apply for visa first, or SSN first? -Get VISA/SSN, start working, earn an awesome reputation as a good nurse the employer wants t sponsor. -Beg manager to sponsor greencard, ~3-6 months after starting working hopefully get green card. -Work with greencard for at least a year or two, then consider going back to school (maybe) with current Florida Residency. Is this realistic?

Wow, I must have all my information wrong then? I thouht that the TN visa was pretty easy to get as a Canadian RN, and then you would go down there, get your license, and then apply for jobs WITH the TN visa? I thought that the HB-1 visa is the one that leads to a green card, and allows you to establish residency. I should add a bit more to my story. It would be VERY important for me to establish my residency and eventually obtain citizenship as I am just about done with living in Canada. I grew up in both Canada, the US, and the UK, so I don't really have any allegiance to one coutry per se. I want to likely move to the US permenantly, and then become a canadian EX-pat so I am no longer a Canadian resident so I no longer have to pay taxes in Canada (I believe if I work in the US as a Canadian Citizen, I pay US taxes and then they evaluate my taxes in Canada and the Canadian government charges me the difference). I can get by with 45% taxes when I'm making 100k a year in Canada, but I can't get ahead in Florida making 50-60k/year with 45% taxes! I also am really considering going back to school to either do my Psych Nurse Practitioner or Clinical Psychology within the next 5 years. From my research into Florida specifically, it seems that you need to have an immigration visa (I believe HB-1 is on the list, but not TN) to establish your residency for tuition purposes. Having Florida residency makes admissions easier, as well as much lower tuition, so it would be a shame if i lived there for 5 years then had to pay out of state/country tuition.

Thanks for the info, I'll start looking.

I know that they are valid for up to 3 years, but could I apply for a HB-1 with my current employer at the time with the rationale that I am going with a TN to see if I like living in the US first, and if I do then I would appply for a HB-1? My understanding is that you get a TN visa without finding an employer first, while the HB-1 requires an employer? I figured it would be 100x easier getting hired if they don't need to do a bunch of extra paperwork for me.

Hey everyone. I have a few questions regarding possibly immigrating to the US from Canada. I have about 4 years RN experience,mostly mental health, and am planning on moving to the US (likely Florida) in the next few months. I am a dual UK.Canadian citizen, and have lived in the US when I was younger for 4 years. My plan is to apply for licensing in Florida, write my NCLEX, get a TN visa, then apply for jobs. If I liked it there, I was going to see if I could get my employer to sponsor an HB-1 visa and live there for a very long time. I was wondering if this process is possible, or if I need to wait for my TN visa to expire? I was also wondering if my TN visa would count for me establashing residency? I am seriously considering going back to school in the next five years, and I chose Florida because it has tons of options in the fields that I am looking (Nurse Practitioner or Clinical Psychologist) and relatively affordable tuition once your state residency has been established. Have any Canadians done this on here? I am also curious as to how taxes work, such as do I stop paying Canadian taxes (in addition to US) after I have an HB-1 visa? Thanks in advanced for any info!

Thanks for the info guys. I've already researched the pet thing, so that's why I want to make my commitment to hawaii before filling out the paperwork. I just don't want to spend all the money and hassle of getting my license and bringing my pets over, just to find out there are no jobs. Anyone had any experiences with this?

Thanks for all the input guys, I really appreciate it! I see there's a career fair in mid January that I will check out and will probably spend the whole time talking to people. I am glad to see that there is still lots of demand in certain areas! I've heard the red tape is a bit much at first, but I don't think it's that hard after the initial process.

Wow, well I will try and respond in a diplomatic way here. First of all, I was asking about areas with really high demand for Nurses in the US so I can get lots of hours. If Americans were willing to relocate to these regions to get a job then the demand would not be as high. Furthermore, in the areas with very low demand for RN's, nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head forcing them to live in the same place. I am not trying to go to the place with no demand and create further competition. I won't buy into any nationalistic BS, I got into Nursing to help people, not Canadians. I plan on doing Nursing w/o borders when I can afford it too :). From what I'm reading it sounds like the job demand for Nurses is very regional, as in there are some places with lots of demand and others with very little demand. I've lived in the US for about 5 years before, I know what I'm getting myself into. Should I tell my instructor who moved here from Texas to go home? My first reaction to hearing that was general pleasure over the fact that some Americans want to move here and check out our awesome country! I find too many American's see the US as the only place to live in the world, so I'm always happy to see yanks come over, except for the real ignorant ones . Haha, not sure what to think of the US supporting me comment. I'll leave that one alone .

Hey guys, I looked around the site for a while and this is the only forum I could think to put this in. I apologize if it is incorrect. Okay, well I will be graduating this April with my RN degree. I am currently in Calgary, and I absolutely hate it here :) (only moved here for school anyway). Well it seems like grads only get hired as casuals in Calgary at first, and apparently it's really hard to get a job at other parts of the province as well (fort mcmurray, etc.). Now I used to live in NJ when I was younger, and have traveled throughout the US extensively. From what I understand, the US is in a similar job crunch, but I also understand that is largely regional. I do not want to sound greedy, but I just completed two bachelor degrees with no parental support, and have about $70,000 in student loans. So can anyone give me advice on what regions/states have the greatest demand for nurses right now? As in what place would I be the most likely to get hired F/T, as well as what would likely offer the greatest overtime. I obviously did not come into the field for the money, but for the first year or two I need to work wherever will offer me the most income, so I can get rid of this enormous debt. I have no family here, no dependents, and nothing preventing me from moving anywhere. So does anyone have any ideas? I really am going in this blind as we don't get much info on the US nursing situation from Canada.

My experience is this: For girls in Nursing (I'm still in school) it offers little to no advantage being a male nurse, in fact it probably works against you. In my school, it's the same girls in the same classes every single day. You flirt with one girl in your class, they all know about it, so don't even bother. Most of the Nurses I meet on the unit are way older, but the younger ones I would never flirt because it's a professional environment and there are far too many risks involved. I assume that they think the same thing. However, like a previous poster, I have FOR SURE gotten attention from family members of patients before. However, just like in the previous examples, there is far too much on line to ever make it happen. Now for women that I meet outside of the 3 domains, every educated intelligent woman that I have ever met has seen it as a very positive thing. Fortunately, this is the only avenue I would ever pursue anyway. Personally, I couldn't care what women think of me as a Nurse, I'm doing the job because I love it and I love helping people. I find most guys respect it too, there's only been a couple that had something negative to say about it. They were all rednecks with a grade 10 education. Need I say more?

Hey guys, I'm just about to start my last semester of my RN degree, and thought I'd share my experience. EVERY single of my instructors, except for one, have written very positive evaluations about me, were very pleasant, were easy on me, and had nothing but good things to say about me. The one exception, however, fabricated a large number of things, and took other things that happened and blew them out of context, and wrote a huge report to the clinical coordinator and failed me. I denied all of the stuff that was false, and I was met with even more hostility with the coordinator who called me a liar. When I asked the coordinator to talk to the nurses I worked with on the unit, she said "no, I believe my instructors". Long story short, I went into the Nursing program with an almost perfect GPA in my first degree (3.92, but who's counting), and by my second semester in Nursing had a big fat F (2 f's, it was a double credit course) on my GPA. So my first instructor, was a guy, second instructor was a girl who failed me, and every other instructor since has been a girl. Now in retrospect, I played the clinical I failed very poorly. It was clear to several students and myself that we did not like each other. When she would make a very bold and controversial statement, I challenged it. Long story short, I put up a power struggle, and well, she won. I later learned that this instructor went through a similar story with another male student she tried to fail before, whom she thought was "too cocky" (I am sure she thought the same of me). Well the student in the other example fought it the end and ended up passing. I gave up, signed the letter saying that I failed the clinical, and accepted the consequences sitting down. What I learned from this experience is that there are male hating alpha female type personalities in Nursing, and a lot of them are going to be instructors too (they must like the power!). The best thing to do is to do whatever you can to get them to like you, and tailor your personality towards that. I have been described as having an "alpha male" personality, and it is that what really ****** off my instructor, I believe. I have been extremely careful to act very humble and respectful to future instructors, and have had no problems since then (although i've also had the most amazing instructors since then too :) ). In the event of an unavoidable altercation, DOCUMENT EVIDENCE. If I kept detailed notes of feedback given from other nurses on the unit that worked with me, and their names, etc., it would have made my defense a lot easier. If you are faced with the possibility of failing and you believe it is unjust, fight it the very end, and bring any sort of documents to support your claim. Just don't take it lying down like I did, or you'll spend countless hours wondering what you should have done. I hope you guys can learn from my mistakes. I know a lot of that was rambling, but it was also very cathartic. :)