bigblondebun

Hi! I was moving for a permanent staff position, so I applied directly through the hospital's website, and then emailed their HR to let them know I'm Canadian and where I was during the CGFNS/registration process. When it took longer than I would've liked to hear from the manager, I reached out to HR again and heard from the manager shortly after. I have worked with a couple Canadian travelers who work through Aya - so they are a travel company that is familiar with the paperwork, although I'm sure they're not the only one.

I just write it down from knowledge/experience! The first time, I was nervous enough already about everything working out that I had trouble racking my brain putting what we do into words/percentages. It all worked out but I thought you may appreciate the heads up! Good luck with everything ?

Hi there, I am a RN originally from Vancouver who just went through the TN process for the second time earlier this week. You will need to present your WA state license at the border in order to obtain TN status. They will take a photocopy of it at the border for their records - if you do not get a physical copy in the mail before your departure, you can print a license verification on the WA DOH provider lookup webpage. A little tip for the process - they will have you fill out a form describing your job duties and the percentage of your day you spend doing each duty. Wishing you the best in your journey to the US!

Hi! I'm not sure if you've been able to find an answer to your question, but from what I remember, there were several time slots (2 morning and an afternoon) for every weekday. If not every weekday, it was offered at least 3x a week: there were many options available. I wrote my NCLEX in August 2018, I am unsure if anything has changed since then. Hope this helps!

Congratulations! Good luck with the big move. Thanks for the heads up on the Nursing Commission processing times.

@Kayycee Hi! How has everything turned out for you? I am finally in your shoes, just waiting to hear back from the nursing commission. I'm hoping to hear soon back regarding a specialty residency program for my top choice hospital in Seattle!

Hi @Kayycee, I'm still in BC at the moment, also waiting for my education to be verified and licence approved! I'm coming up on my 1 year mark as an RN and hoping to have around 1.5-2 years before I start applying to jobs down south.

Hi Gswords, Your posts on previous topics have been very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate and answer my questions! My practice is currently based in post-op cardiac surgery, and it seems like there's demand for cardiac nurses, or at least med-surg with telemetry experience preferred. Would you say you are happier practicing in the US? Are there things you miss about the Canadian system?

Hi there, I am an RN in BC looking to move down to Washington state to be with my partner. I've read through a recent thread regarding moving to Seattle from Vancouver, but was hoping to find some more perspectives. If anyone here able to share their experience obtaining a WA state licence, finding employment, or overall differences in practice/culture between the two healthcare systems, I would greatly appreciate it! I would also value any thoughts or input from WA RNs who have worked with Canadian RNs. Thank you ?

I applied with a 3.8, but the pre-requisites have changed since my intake. There's a couple threads on more recent intakes in the link from my last post, where you can check out what students got in with for Fall 2016 and January 2017 :)

Hi there, I'm currently in Langara's program and I know several people in the program who got accepted after retaking A&P, Langara just took the highest mark into account for the GPA calculation. I'm not sure about BCIT and VCC, but there's a Canadian Nursing Schools section on AllNurses (https://allnurses.com/canada-nursing-programs/) where there are posts about other nursing schools. From my reading of some BCIT posts, it looks like there are students have had to retake A&P to get a better grade. Good luck next term!

There's few programs in BC that offer direct entry from high school, and in the lower mainland the only direct entry option is Kwantlen. If you're planning on living in the lower mainland, I believe your best decision would be to complete pre-requisites for programs such as Langara and Douglas and then apply. However, if you're willing to go to the Okanagan, UBCO has a strong nursing program that allows for direct entry from high school, and from what I have heard, your average should be enough.

If you sign up on the first day that applications open as a new student at Langara, you get an earlier registration time. When I was in high school, I applied to Langara on the very fist day you could and was able to get all 5 of the courses I needed for my first semester. I don't really know how they assign registration times after that, but I believe it has something to do with your GPA. I took A&P, stats and English along with two electives in one semester and managed to handle it, but it was stressful. You really have to be careful in selecting which professor you're planning on taking each course with, especially for English, since that's the course with the most subjective marking out of the three. Most of the A&P profs at Langara have different types of exams: some like all multiple choice, while some prefer short answer questions. This could definitely have an impact on your mark in the course. While I personally think taking all 3 of them is doable and worth it, I also think it really depends on how comfortable you feel with stats and A&P. If you have strong study skills and a solid scientific and mathematic base (stats isn't as hard to understand as algebra and calculus, but it's still a branch of applied mathematics) it will be fine. It's hard to say since stats is a subject that people either really understand or are really confused by while A&P is a lot of memorization, so it depends on your study skills and the effort you put in (as well as how your professor tests you)!

Sorry Kay, I misunderstood what you meant when you said "An extra English class isn't exactly going to prepare us anymore," which is why I commented. I agree that Langara should've put these changes in for an intake later than Spring 2017 and wish you all success in your studies!

The extra English course is one that you'll have to take during the program. I am currently in term one and the load is quite heavy. Many of us took English 1129 /1130 prior to starting the program, but there are a few people in the program who have to take it alongside 5 nursing courses and it definitely adds to their stress. By ensuring that students have these courses done before starting the nursing program, it reduces their stress, improves their chances of succeeding, and allows courses from other heavy terms to be switched around a bit, ultimately making the program more manageable for you. Langara is constantly working to improve their curriculum by getting feedback from students, and these changes are probably due to students mentioning that semesters 1 and 2, where you have to take that extra non-nursing course are really tough. It is really frustrating that they changed the requirements in the middle of the semester, but hopefully you can understand why these changes are being made.