MrsSilverFox

Wondering if there is a specific site or agency that is better than the rest when it comes to helping relocate RN's from Canada to the States permanently? I know there are a lot of websites that could probably answer my question but I was hoping to hear from a real-life person about their experience with the recruiter and the actual move. The good bad and ugly. ? Hoping to relocate to Arizona, I am a dual citizen and I already have a valid Az license. Thanks in advance.

It is usually the early hours of a night shift when I would dream of working a day job. That is really what gets me into trouble, the daydreaming. On one of those magical nights when every call bell in the place is ringing and you find yourself short staffed and exhausted, I found myself wondering what it would be like not to be a bedside nurse. Then BAM, it happened. I jumped in half awake wondering what on earth could go wrong? Well, let me say, "absolutely everything has gone wrong". I have taken a job that I wasn't looking for ( not in the real job hunting sort of way ) and have landed in a land of backstabbing and storytelling, some of the best I have ever heard. There is no real direction and no orientation what so ever. I was shown where my office was and told that this is where I would come every day from now to eternity. Wowza even saying it out loud makes me uneasy. Now I understand the evil laugh that followed those statements made by my professional assistant. Coincidentally she quit the next day and said: "well the department is all yours now and I wish you luck, you will need it". It has been nothing that I have ever experienced before. Management has left me wanting a different life and wanting to be the best nurse I could possibly be if the outlined expectations for a manager are as they seem. It really has nothing at all to do with patient safety or patient experience it is all about the money and who and what can we cut. The expectation of working 50 hours a week and only getting paid for 38 has left me experiencing a great deal of anger and frustration. I am drowning in paperwork and although the staff would argue to the contrary I don't ever get to have lunch or even get a fresh coffee. I am in constant conflict with my directors and am fighting for those exact people's jobs that are talking trash about my abilities. Unbeknownst to them, I saved jobs today, making me less than popular at the director's meetings. Yes, we will have to do without for the expensive dressings and certain personal care items like warm wipes that everyone has become accustomed too but in the end, for me anyway, it is all about patient and staff safety. I once mentioned it in a manger meeting (out of total frustration I have to admit), that "not once in all our ongoing meetings has anyone brought forth patient safety or patient care, only about money and budgets, am I the only person here that finds this wrong". Well, you could have heard a pin drop, I guess I was the only one. Now after this experience I want to return to the bedside and have promised myself that if I do end up getting a job in the near future I will never again complain or look for anything new ever again. My life changed when I entered this area of madness and wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you are willing to sit through meetings that never resolve anything and nights of total anxiety as you know that there are not enough hours in the day to complete everything on your list. Although this is only my humble opinion. I suspect, due to my big mouth, I will be asked to leave the current management position that I hold, after all, who wants someone in the driver's seat who cares more about the passengers than the actual bus? Just wanted to put it in writing and revisit this post when I think I want to do anything other than critical care nursing.

Awe Freckles23, don't give up. I know it is difficult at times, but you make a difference even if you think you don't, you do. Now her is what I would do . I am not sure what your facility has for reporting incidents or near misses, but I would direct anyone that listens to you to start filling them out, I know it is more work but fill them out every time someone yells at you, ,,,,(state you felt threatened and unsafe). Fill them out when you have extremely sick patients and are unable to get to assess them properly due to other patients being sick etc. Every time a family member starts at you, tell them you say "I understand but that they are talking to the wrong person although you feel their frustrations "and then give them the managers number directly make sure and include the times they are in their office, you should not be taking this all by yourself. I can tell you as soon as they (management) start getting these calls daily they will be doing something to stop the calls. There is no law anywhere that says that you can't do this....after all they are management and should be fielding these calls. Instruct family to write down their concerns then they won't forget. Always reiterate that you are doing the best you can with the resources that you have and the time constraints that you are under. And if possible have another nurse with you so they can confirm your chain of events, then chart it with all the colorful words they might have used. Also include those colorful words in the incident report with quotation marks. I got to the point in the ED that when family members started in on my nurses I would intervene and say "you know what I don't come to your place of work and harass you, we are doing the best we can with the resources we have and yelling at us is not going to change the wait times or quicken the treatments of other patients in the department, here is the managers number she is here from Monday to Friday 8-4pm, don't leave a message call until you are able to talk to her in person." Most of the time they realized that I wouldn't put up with it and they take the card. Then I would chart their exact words ,other nurse who heard the conversation and then fill out an incident report. Don't give up. We have all been there.

As a former charge nurse of a very busy ED, I can say this happens a lot and, although frustrating there are a lot of things to consider. As a ED department you are bombarded by the public who demand to be seen, others are too sick to demand anything, some are dying then your trauma's etc. You can have 20 to 30 people waiting in the waiting room or more ( now remember the triage nurse needs to keep the vitals up to date on those patients and most of the time with little to no help) and some of those patients are very sick. Now imagine the stress on that nurse, she is looking at these patients knowing they are very sick and roaming the department looking for a bed and there are none. So the push to move the other patients out of the department is always present, we absolutely don't want anyone dying in the waiting room (unfortunately it does happen). The MD along with management want patients moved when there is nothing else "emergent " (Ie we have done the scans we have done the tests , we have given the meds or blood or whatever ) and the specialized unit is what they need. At times those patients can turn very quickly and without warning and it is usually once they get to the unit. Some patients won't tell you when they feel unwell because they want out of the ED as well and onto a real bed so they don't say they have pain etc, other times it is not asked of the ED nurse. I never wanted someone who was palliative to die in the ED, it is just not right. Now having a trauma patient die after doing CPR and other interventions for 40 mins is a different scenario. So moving a palliative patient to a unit into a private room with their family to die in private....is the right thing to do, in my opinion. No matter where or how the push comes from, it is really uncomfortable for all nurses and medical staff involved. I know my nurses worried about sending a patient to the units before the patient was stable but unfortunately that sometimes was the "most " stable patient to go. It is frustrating and we sometimes feel like we could direct 747's at the airport better than our own jobs, but that is what health care is all about....or at least in the ED it feels that way. I agree that communication is key and the doctors should not be accepting patients that they think are unstable. We had multiple doctors who finally said " No we are not accepting they are too sick", it did get us a couple more ER nurses (which gave us a few more beds )and an additional triage nurse. But if they continue to go along because they feel pressured it will never end. Just my own experience I realize that everyone's environment is different. Just know that as a former ED nurse we all were frustrated ( at least in my facility)at the state of health care. I absolutely feel your pain. I hope it improves for you. All the best of luck.

Decided not to move to B.C after all. Now working as a nurse coroner in Canada. Actual thought of going to the US again, after a disastrous first attempt,many years ago. But I will stay doing what I am doing for now, it is interesting and sad all at the same time.

I am a Canadian RN who wrote the NCLEX a few times....it is devastating and I know you feel like "what is wrong with me, what is with this test". I felt as though I was doing something wrong, after all I passed (with great marks) my science degree and CRNE without difficulty. Plus I was a practical nurse prior to that and wrote that exam without difficulty and only once as well. All in all it was very disappointing and depressing but instead of sitting and overthinking it I decided to do something about it. First of all I want to say is don't listen to everyone that tells you that based on the questions you get and when the computer turns off will gauge if you passed or failed. A person can get 75 questions and fail and another person can get 265 questions and pass. If you focus on the number of the question ( ie . question 5. ) then you are not focusing on the question being asked so how can you answer it? After I failed a few times I needed to re evaluate what I was doing wrong. It became obvious that reading and the traditional studying was not working for me so I looked for a different way. I knew that if you showed me ( visually) how to do something I would be able to do it, no problem. Remember that for a lot of us it has been over 10 years since we wrote the CRNE and the information being covered is a touch different than what we were taught here in Canada. In Canada the focus was diabetes, insulin, MS, hypertension etc was covered because that is what we see in Canada. For the NCLEX I was asked about sickle cell, Addison's disease etc I had no idea at least not enough to answer the question correctly. So instead of buying another KAPLAN book or "NCLEX LEARNING" book, I found a site that was my saving grace. "Review for nurses" is an online course by nurses who have wrote some of the NCLEX testing questions. It showed me what they focus on and the disease / meds/ tests that they will or may ask you about. I passed the exam without difficulty. Just remember that everyone learns differently so you need to find out how you learn and then go from there....do some research. You can PM me if you have any other questions. Best of luck to you.

Believe it or not I think this happens a lot to us nurses, and no doubt other professionals as well. I have done this exact same thing. Wished and prayed for a job, thinking that it would be so much better than what I was currently doing. I have worked most of my career in the ED or Urgent care settings, moving from staff nurse to charge nurse. I was comfortable and good at my job, because I knew the policies and procedures like the back of my hand, then I saw a job that I thought would be so much better, and I was getting bored. I am a big believer that once you get comfortable you start to make mistakes, so I started to look around at other jobs. One day I decided to just do it, resign from my job and move, yupp all the way to the US from Canada. They made it sound so glamorous and of course way more interesting than what I was currently doing. I already knew a lot of other Canadian nurse who had worked and were working in Nevada, so I thought, why not?. Well instead of being valued for my years of experience and education, I was treated like I was invisible. It was horrible. No orientation no real guidance. I usually looked after 9 patients with no help. It was difficult to get a pee break never mind a lunch break. I struggled with everything and there was absolutely no communication between the charge staff and the staff nurses. Couldn't find the nursing policies anywhere and no one seemed to know where they were. Everyone did things differently, no rhyme or reason. I had more experience and education than the chief nursing officer, it was all very disappointing. I was so depressed and couldn't wait to return to what I knew....in Canada. But the plus side was that I did meet one of my dearest friends there and we meet up all the time I return to town. She to is Canadian but is married and very settled in the city. So sometimes the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but at least you tried. I once talked to a director of nursing (once I returned to Canada) and she told me that she looks for diversity on a resume. Diversity in different areas of nursing , she told me that it shows that you aren't afraid of change. We all know how nurses hate change, well for the most part, if you don't believe me, talk to staff who had to implement computerized charting into an old pen to paper charting system. YIKES. Don't ever regret taking a chance. You still learned something, even if it doesn't seem like it currently. I did return to Canada and to the ER department that I was so familiar with and it was great. That was many years ago. I have taken it as a learning experience and I know what I will look for in the future. I am a big believer that if you aren't happy than you need to make a change. Don't feel bad and don't lose sleep over it, take it as a learning experience and move on or in my case, move back. hahaha All the best of luck to you.

Not to sure if anyone is still interested in this topic still but I have some information. Although I am not from the USA, I actually live and work in Canada as a Nurse Coroner. My boss recently talked about a course at the University of North Dakota for "Death Investigating Training". Good luck to everyone interested in this topic.

Yes, I guess I knew that, coming from a unionized position myself. I should have rephrased the question and asked how easy it is to get time off and/or how many weeks one gets when they first start with IH.

After many years of (critical care) nursing in a large city in Alberta, we have decided that we have had enough and are ready to move. I have been commuting in horrible traffic for the past 10 years, and in the winter months it can take me up to 1.5 hours (or longer) to get home ( and I live in the city well the very edge of the city) thanks to the weather, accidents or road conditions etc. UGH I am done with spending that much time in my vehicle. Just ready to get out of the big city!!! After spending a great deal of time in the Kootenays we are very interested in Cranbrook BC. Any information that anyone would like to share would be appreciated. Interested in rotations in the ER/ ICU (12 hours?, ddnn?) patient/nurse ratios, are there charge nurses?, how easy to get holidays.....that kind of stuff. I did ask the recruiter but she provided little information, really couldn't give me any information and stated that she "worked from Kelowna". Thanks in advance.

Did a contract at one of those hospitals you mentioned and it was horrible. Staff was bitter (but it can be like that anywhere), most days I would have 9 patients with no help. Never got a pee break or a lunch break (they would say "oh we forgot to come and break you" ....), the charge nurse was not any help. There were contract nurses who actual left mid shift, some were crying and some were not willing to risk their license. I always felt that they(other nurses) were wanting me to fail. There was minimal direction/ help from anyone, and during orientation they never covered policies or procedures etc. I really wanted to stay permanently in Vegas as we have many friends who live there and we love the city (not the strip so much but the actual city), but after that horrible experience I returned home and to my former job. It isn't all everyone else's fault, I was warned, many times. But now with all that said, I would return and try again but not with any of those hospitals that you mentioned. I think I would try Summerlin or the level I trauma center, I have heard good stuff about those places. Just my experience, you may have a great time. I wish you lots of luck.