RN w/o nursing school?

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Is there a way for someone with an advanced degree in Medicine (such as a DDS, DO, MD) to "challenge" RN the licensing exam of California or any other state? I read an newspaper article about physicians licensed in other countries being recruited to come to work as RNs here?

Joe

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I think you would have to take some nursing courses with the required clinical component.

Dentistry and medicine are separate professions from nursing. Of course you've taken such academics as chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and pshychology. Learning, understanding, and applying the Nursing Process" is only taught in a nursing program.

Welcome! If you truly want to be a nurse you have an enourmous head start.

Please check with the Board of Registered Nursing to be certain. Just because I posted what I believe is true it is best to ask them directly.

http://www.rn.ca.gov/lic/lic-exam.htm

http://www.rn.ca.gov/lic/lic.htm

http://www.rn.ca.gov/npa/title16.htm#1426

From Title 16, the California Nursing Practice Act:

"The following shall be integrated throughout the entire nursing curriculum:

(1) Nursing process;

(2) Basic intervention skills in preventive, remedial, supportive and rehabilitative nursing;

(3) Physical, behavioral and social aspects of human development from birth through all age levels;

(4) The knowledge and skills required to develop collegial relationships with health care providers from other disciplines;

(5) Communication skills including principles of verbal, written and group communications; (6) Natural sciences including human anatomy, physiology and microbiology; and

(7) Related behavioral and social sciences with emphasis on societal and cultural patterns, human development, and behavior relevant to health?illness. "

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One of the requirements to get permission to test for NCLEX, is to have attended and graduated from a school of Nursing. Nurses are not Jr Doctors.

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Not sure about this.

Currently there is an MD from another country who is in our nursing program. Apparently she HAD to go through nursing school.

Good luck. :)

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Is there a way for someone with an advanced degree in Medicine (such as a DDS, DO, MD) to "challenge" RN the licensing exam of California or any other state? I read an newspaper article about physicians licensed in other countries being recruited to come to work as RNs here?

Joe

I suspect the article you read was about how it is sometimes easier for advanced degrees in Medicine that live abroad to go through nursing school to work here as an RN than it is to get clearance to practice as an MD here.

And the money situation is such that working as an RN here is often times much more lucrative than working as an MD in some places abroad.

But I seriously doubt any state will allow someone that didn't graduate from a nursing program to take the NCLEX exam for licensure. It is a different body of knowledge, a different approach than being, say, an MD.

And the differences are enough that an advanced degree isn't inclusive of that body of knowledge. If you took prescriptive authority, medical dx and prognosis, and the authority to perform invasive procedures away from a doc, you don't have a nurse; you have a lay person.

~faith,

Timothy.

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No one can challenge the RN Boards in any state without graduating from nursing school. It is much easier for a foreign trained doctor to attend nursing school for an additional two years and be able to get a green card, than to try to pass the US Medical Boards, etc.

The quickest time for them to complete the program would be about 14 months, but that would be thru an accelerated program in the US, otherwise it is two years in their home country.

Hope that this helps straighten things out for you.

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