RN interested in Air Force

[Ally54]

Hi! I’ve taken a lot of time to read through many posts regarding Air Force nursing and it has been incredibly helpful. I appreciate everyone taking the time to read and reply to help their fellow nurses circumvent this journey. My career has taken me down different roads and to be honest, I’m just looking for something different. Something I’ve never had the opportunity to do and something that I hope will add value to my life and career. I would like to advance my degree in the future but I’m not sure I know where I want to end up yet. This is what has brought me to considering the Air Force.

I have been a nurse for 7 years. I have my BSN. My experience includes adult med surg and intermediate cardiac care but the last 4 years has been in pediatrics. I have worked in a pediatric, level 1 ER and a pediatric float nurse. I’m currently working as a RN in a pediatric pacu setting. I’ve loved pediatrics for a long time but now I’m wanting to go back to working with adults for personal reasons. Based on other posts, it sounds like I would probably have to start as a clinical nurse. But does anybody have any insight on if my peds experience would be beneficial? I’m also studying for my CPN. Would this be beneficial in the application process?

The most complicated aspect of this decision process is the fact that my husband is currently active, enlisted Air Force. He is very supportive of me going in as an active officer. Does anybody have any experience as dual military, specifically with one of the spouses as medical? My greatest concern is the AF giving us separate orders. We have one child and this would be less than ideal. As far as deployments go, I’ve been reassured we both wouldn’t be deployed at the same time unless it was an extra special circumstance. Also, both of our jobs have 12 hour shifts. It would be perfect to rotate us around each other’s schedule for childcare options since base daycare isn’t even available for 12 hours. Or would they look at 8 hour shifts for one of us so we have the option of daycare? Dual military was one subject area that I didn’t find a lot of feedback on so if anybody has experience, I’d really appreciate any input! If anybody is reserve or guard, and has input regarding dual military with a RN, I’d also be open to hearing any pros or cons.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Moved to the Government/Military discussion forum

[Nunya, BSN]

AF nurse 12 years, 1984-96. Worked for Army as civilian nurse 2002-12. I think it would be fairly easy to get stationed with your husband as most bases have either a clinic or hospital, obviously bigger bases with bigger hospitals would be easiest so that would depend on your husband's job. All your experience is good since you can work with kids and adults. I wouldn't count on necessarily being able to have one of you work 8s though, if they tried to work around everyone's spouse's schedule it would be a mess. Usually there are home childcare providers who take kids at night, or maybe you can find a friend. I've done the schedule at several bases and really it's just not practical to look at spouse's schedules in relation to yours. And yes, it's unlikely that both of you would be deployed at the same time, but it's not impossible so you need to think ahead of time on what to do if this happens (who will take your child). Most dual military couples I know/have known where one is medical have been able to be stationed together, one exception is an Army enlisted soldier who took a Drill Instructor position and wasn't with her husband for a couple years I believe. But that was her decision to take that position and it's helped in her career. Good luck!