UK Child Health Nurse - wanting to move to US

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Hi there

I am a UK child health nurse hoping to move to the UK. My understanding is that I can't sit the CGFNS exam because I am only trained as a child health nurse, and only those trained as general nurses are eligable to sit this exam. From what I read on this forum it would seem that most states no longer require this so hopefully this wont be too much of a problem and instead I would have to sit the NCLEX exam.

My main question is would I be eligable to sit the NCLEX exam if I am not trained as a general nurse? Or will different nursing boards have a different opinion about this? Also do you apply for a nursing licence first then sit the NCLEX exam or is it the other way around? Once I have sat the NCLEX and obtained a nurse licence for the state I wish to work in is just a case of applying for the visa screen certificate and finding an employer to be a sponser for a visa?

Any information would be a lot of help!

Kirsten

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also the states I was interested in working in are New Jersey or Massachussets but I couldn't seem to find much information about the New Jersey board of nursing on the internet.

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From what I have read on this forum you will find that most from the UK are lacking classes and clinical experience in some areas. Here in the US you're trained as a general nurse. You may have to meet the requirements for the areas that you're missing. Most states follow the same pattern with some slight differences, but if you're not educated as a general nurse you may have some difficulties sitting for NCLEX. If you don't have a visa waiting or a PD, then you're going to be waiting for years at a change for a visa. Good Luck

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what do you mean by difficulties? just that it will take a lot of extra study and preperation, or that i won't be allowed to sit it?

also why are there such long waits with visas? i know someone who recently applied for a post doc, got the job offer and is off to the USA in the next few months. she certainly hadn't applied years in advance for a visa? or does it just depend on what kind of work you are applying for?

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also whats a PD?

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Sorry I wasn't clear on difficulties. What I meant by difficulties is that you may have to jump through extra hoopsto meet the requirements in order to sit for NCLEX.

There is a long wait for visas because there are more applicants than visas available.

Never compare yourself to anybody else who has received a visa to the US, as every case is different. I have no idea what visa the person is on, it could be a H1b visa or it could be a R-1 visa, but since your post is so vague it's hard to tell.

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PD=priority date. I'm unsure what it is for folks in the UK, there's a recent thread which might give you a clue what the dates are currently.

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i don't really know too much about american visas to be honest. i think i'll worry about that if i'm able to get a nursing licence.

my main worry is the NCLEX, what kind of extra hoops do you mean?

thanks for your help so far by the way :-)

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Welcome to allnurses!

The US (all states) educates and licenses nurses as generalists -- you will have to have completed a minimum required amount of classroom education and supervised clinical experience in adult med-surg, OB, and psych, in addition to peds, to be eligible for licensure (and to write the NCLEX) in any state in the US. It's an entirely different model of nursing education than used in the UK.

I know there are some threads here discussing other UK nurses running into this and what they needed to do to get licensed in the US -- you may be able to find them using the "search" feature.

Best wishes! :balloons:

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Because the NCLEX is a national exam all states have same requirements in that you have to be general trained, the only thing that may change is how many hours you have but I doubt it will change by much. If you have to make up hours it usually involves both clinical and theory and there really isn't many places if any in the UK that are doing this. I would suggest you get CES report done by CGFNS as that will ultimately tell you what you are short on and is generally required by a lot of states. CGFNS exam is only required by a handful of states now so if not required by the state you apply to there is no need to do it because you still have to take NCLEX at some stage as that is a requirements by all states to be able to work as a RN in the US

Nurses generally come under EB3 visa which is under retrogression, if skilled and meet H1b requirements that could be something to go for but you need a BSN and usually specialised in an area. PD is priority date and is the date your I140 is filed and approved.Depending where in MA you are looking at working will depend how easy or hard it is for a job, seen many post in the MA state forum on finding difficulties on getting a job so you may want to check out the state forums which you can find in the region tab above.

Some threads for starting point

https://allnurses.com/international-nursing/working-canada-us-135769.html

Old thread https://allnurses.com/united-kingdom-uk/making-up-hours-240216.html

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ok, thanks for clearing that up. i think i now have a better understanding of how the whole system works. man its all so frustrating. to be honest i'm not even overly enthusiastic to move to the states anyway but my boyfriend wants to get a post doc there once he finishes his Phd. this is a route that quite a few of his collouges have gone down so it looks possible in terms of visas and stuff.

i'm reluctant to take the CES report at the moment as its very expensive and he may not even get a job out there so it would be a complete waste of money. however if i wait till he gets a job offer i might have to wait a long time to get everything sorted out. the most practical route would be to make up the extra hours in the states however i'm guessing this is a very, very expensive way of doing things, with no guarentee that i would even get a job at the end of it :-( i'm just worried that i will have a lot of clinical hours to make up as i am trained as a child health nurse, not an adult nurse.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

If your boyfriend gets a visa there is no guarantee that you could join him as most require you to be married however if you are living together you may get a B1 or B2 visa as co-hab but it will not allow you to work. If you get married and he gets a H1b then you can not work on that visa either.

I would wait until he gets a job but be aware things may be very tough for you depending on what sort of visa he gets

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