Reserves Nursing

[krrbrr, ADN]

I'm looking for information on the different branches for Reserves. I currently work at an ASC as an OR Charge Nurse and am wanting to branch into the military setting.

Experience

• 9 months med/surg
• 1 year OR
• 1 year PACU/Pre-Op/OR at an ASC

I am currently 39 years old, live in Dallas, TX (unable to relocate) and am in the process of obtaining my BSN with a completion date no later than 10/31/2020. I do need to work on my physical requirements in order to join any branch, but since I'll have until then I think I should have plenty of time to meet that goal.

What I'm looking for

• not sure if this is in every branch, but something like AFR 1 weekend/mo and 2 weeks/yr would be perfect
• so far AFR Flight Nurse has caught my interest the most, but with my background would I qualify for something like that?
• NOT med/surg
• I wouldn't mind doing OR or some sort of perioperative nursing, but not sure if that would be an option given my location. There are no bases close to my home, so not sure how that would work out.
• something to further my career/improve my knowledge base

I already tried to call a recruiter and basically they won't talk to me unless I have a BSN. I would hate to get my hopes up thinking this is obtainable for me, only to find out later that it's not.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

[jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA]

For flight, they are really looking for ICU or ER experience...really ICU would be better. I would recommend ICU at a large university medical center. I think the minimum experience they'd take would be 1 year of ICU.

You say "I can't relocate." That makes me think your life isn't very flexible right now. Reserves is way more than just one weekend a month. For flight right off the bat you're looking at ~5 months of full-time training all over the country between officer basic (COT) and all your flight nursing courses. You also are vulnerable to deploy for 6 months at a time (probably every 3 years in the reserves). Is this a commitment you can handle?

[krrbrr, ADN]

Thanks for the response, I figured that might be the case and have looked into ICU & ER positions already locally.

The "I can't relocate" is more on a permanent basis. My husband has an amazing job here and I don't want to disrupt his job. However, I am totally willing to spend months away for training and deployment as needed. I just have to drive ~3-4 hrs to get to the closest base, so I wouldn't be able to drive there every other weekend or I would be exhausted. ?