Travel Nurse Practitioner... international locations??

79Tango · Jul 26, 2011

You might want to think about joining the Military...

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2011

First, a nursing license is not automatically transferable. While it is relatively easy to transfer between US states, transferring to another nation requires fitting with their requirements, which may be quite different.

Second, many nations may not have a NP role, thus may not be able to license you.

Third, and possibly the most important, getting a license is generally not the biggest hurdle. Getting the legal right to work within another nation is often the bigger hurdle. For example, the EU protects citizen's right to work above immigration. Due the recession, they have had to layoff workers. With that occurring, few employers can justify hiring non citizens and few working Visas are available.

Your best bet for accurate data is to inquire about specific nations.

katkonk, BSN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

Agree with Carollady, it is very difficult to get the opportunity to work in Europe. I have tried as an RN. If you take a civilian contract on a military base, you can do it. Other than that, good luck. You must be fluent in their language, for one thing, if taking a job outside of a federal facility. The European nations are not as progressive as America when it comes to mid-level providers. The doctors still very clearly run the show there.

timkru · Sep 10, 2013

In the off chance you're still looking at this subject, I wanted to encourage you there are opportunities to work among the commonwealth countries (i.e. UK, South Africa, Australia) as their Nurse Practitioner roles are similar to that of the states. As mentioned before, it is necessary to get a working visa in the country to allow that to happen, but in those countries, there is a shortage of primary care clinicians allowing an individual a possible expedited route.

For the rest of Europe however, you have to see if they even have an advanced practice nurse role. Some places have developing roles (i.e. Netherlands and Sweden) while others have a surplus of doctors (i.e. Italy, France, and Greece) and often do not even have the need for nurses to develop a greater scope of practice.

zenman · Sep 10, 2013

You can try US embassies as they are US soil. I knew an FNP at US Embassy in Bangkok.

erin.tolbert · Sep 10, 2013

There are certainly opportunities abroad but be aware that other countries may define the nurse practitioner role a bit differently. For example, I looked into working in New Zealand (awesome!) through a recruiter. While they do hire NPs in New Zealand, they were paid only slightly more than RNs and a certain number of years of RN experience were required to practice as an NP which I did not have.

An excellent opportunity go go abroad while still practicing under your US license is to work for the US Department of State. They offer opportunities all over the world.