Quick, Easy Question.

[Mesomorph]

...just indulge me.

Lets say I finish nursing school, pass the NCLEX, but never actually go on to work as a nurse. Will I hold the title "RN" for life, or will the title expire? If so, when? If it expires, what will my new title be? In other words, if I'm [Name] RN, BSN and it expires, what does it become?

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

You always have your degree, so you would be Mesomorph, BSN.

[Mesomorph]

You always have your degree, so you would be Mesomorph, BSN.

What about the RN portion of it?

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Whether or not your nursing license remains valid is a question that can only be answered by what your state nursing law says. You can find that out by reading your state nursing law. You can link into your state board of nursing by clicking on the "Links" tab above and then clicking on "Boards of Nursing". When the listing comes up just click on your state. When you get to your state board of nursing website look for a link to the state nursing law. Sometimes there will be links that address the rules about licensure.

In most states, we have to renew our licenses every two years and sometimes there are conditions attached to the renewal such as payment of a fee and satisfaction of continuing education hours. A few states are now requiring that nurses also be actively employed for a certain number of hours during the renewal period. However, the only way you are going to find that out is to check your state nursing law.

No one can take your bachelor's degree from you. That you have forever.

[Mesomorph]

I'm just contemplating if it's even worth taking the NCLEX if I have no intention of being a nurse. If the title RN would stick with me, I'd take the test, but if not, I don't see the point in wasting the money. I'm kind of at the point where I realize I don't want to do nursing, no matter what the area, but I'm not foolish enough to drop out of college after investing all of this time (Just 6 more months!!!)

...I think I might go into computer programming... Hm...

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

The title wouldn't stick with you once your license expired, but you would have the option to go back and reactivate it (usually by fulfilling a state's CE requirements) without going through another nursing program.

This represents an advantage of licensure over certification. If I let my EMT-Intermediate certification drop and decide a couple of years later to get it back, I get to start back at the first day of EMT-Basic school.

[PRESLA]

]My state requires us to get CEU's and career development plan to keep our license we can place it in the inactive status.

Lisa :trout:

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

I'm just contemplating if it's even worth taking the NCLEX if I have no intention of being a nurse. If the title RN would stick with me, I'd take the test, but if not, I don't see the point in wasting the money. I'm kind of at the point where I realize I don't want to do nursing, no matter what the area, but I'm not foolish enough to drop out of college after investing all of this time (Just 6 more months!!!)

...I think I might go into computer programming... Hm...

The title, RN, refers to the fact that you are legally licensed to practice. If you don't take the NCLEX and don't get a state license, then you cannot call yourself an RN. You can say you went and finished RN school but you are not licensed to practice. If you have a Bachelor's degree in the Science of Nursing (BSN) you can still call yourself Mesomorph, BSN. That is not the same as Mesomorph, RN.

The license is a legal privilege, just like having a license to drive a car is a legal privilege. You can't drive a car without a license; you can't perform nursing without a license either. Now, I know a few people are going to respond and say that people drive cars without licenses all the time. True, but if they get caught. . . The same applies to nursing. If you practice nursing without a license and get caught. . .

With a BSN and going in to another field, your nursing credentials will be a background plus for some other endeavor you go in to. No education is ever wasted. Rather than programming, go into informatics. Programmers are a dime a dozen. The people who make the big bucks are the designers. The business end of healthcare in particular is just now taking off and very big into electronic health records. This is how NANDA and the nursing diagnosis taxonomy got started. It was all about computerizing and standardizing the care plan for computerized storage. With a nursing background and computer knowledge you could write your own job description. I'm not kidding. You should be looking at nursing informatics or health information management as potential careers.

[Jedi of Zen]

I'm only still a student myself, but my understanding is this: After you graduate and take (and pass) the NCLEX - at that particular point in time, you are still NOT an RN, regardless of what your future plans are. Immediately after you pass the NCLEX, however, you can (as the vast majority of grads do as a matter of course) submit your NCLEX results along with the all the necessary paperwork to the state - THEN you become an RN.

If you wanted to keep your title but not actually work in nursing, I think there is a at least one option for that that you can take in most states - you can either retire your license, or you can maintain a non-active license. If you retire your license, I think you can later make it active again if you want to, but you may have to go thru certain requirements. If you maintain a non-active license, I think you would still have to take continuing eds every year. There may be additional requirements added to that as well (ex, additional continuing eds to compensate for your loss of knowledge that would probably occur over time from not working in the field, etc.) One of my nursing teachers at school actually has a non-active license.

So maybe you could look into your state's policies on that. There may also be ways that you could do computer work within the nursing profession, though I'm sure you've already considered that. I know that you can do consulting and/or medical research as an RN, but I personally don't know any specifics about those fields.

Good luck, and hope this helps. I actually left another field (massage therapy) shortly after graduating and being licensed in that, in order to pursue nursing so I kinda know how you might be feeling right now, lol.

[Jedi of Zen]

The license is a legal privilege, just like having a license to drive a car is a legal privilege. You can't drive a car without a license; you can't perform nursing without a license either. Now, I know a few people are going to respond and say that people drive cars without licenses all the time. True, but if they get caught. . . The same applies to nursing. If you practice nursing without a license and get caught. . .

How on earth would they NOT get caught? I would imagine that surely in most if not all states, every nursing employer is required by law to verify that the license in question actually exists before the person is even hired, no?

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

You've come this far, by going through nursing school and everything. IMHO I think it would be a waste not to take the NCLEX, because really you never know what will happen, as things change, especially since you're young. There's no harm in taking the NCLEX, nothing to lose, might as well go for it.

Just my

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

How on earth would they NOT get caught? I would imagine that surely in most if not all states, every nursing employer is required by law to verify that the license in question actually exists before the person is even hired, no?

I don't know how they manage to let it happen, but it does! When I go to my state board of nursing website, they have an "imposter list" with a list of names stating these people have either applied for a position, been employed (scary!!), or have represented themselves to others as a nurse or CNA without evidence of a valid license.