UK mental health RN coming to US-- please advise!

[karenista]

Hi,

My fiance is a mental health nurse in the UK. He will be moving to the US to live with me and wants to continue to work as a mental health nurse. He will be entering on a fiance visa so he does not need visa screen. However, in the UK he is trained only as a mental health nurse and not as a general nurse, so he is not eligible for CGFNS exam. Can you please advise on how he can quickly make up the coursework to complete his education? Any helpful websites or resources would be appreciated as well.

Thanks very much!

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Hi and welcome to the site

He will only have to do CGFNS exam if the state requires it and at the moment I believe only about 4-5 still have this requirement. Has he checked with the state he will be moving to and applied for license? The reason I ask is he may be OK with his transcripts. We have had a few UK nurses mental health trained that thought they would have to make hours up and didn't.

If he does have to make hours up I suggest contacting local nursing schools and see if he can attend as a guest student just for the courses he needs to make up. Starting point would be the state board of nursing and checking whether he needs to make hours up or not. Main way for this is to apply and meet foreign nurse requirements.

Which state will he be living in?

[karenista]

Thanks Silverdragon I appreciate your response. He will be applying to Rhode Island, which unfortunately does still ask for CGFNS. So does Massachusetts, which would be our second choice. He cannot apply for license in either state until he fulfills CGFNS, and according to their website he is ineligible since he is not general, even though he is an RN. The idea of paying them over $400 to review his credentials for them to tell me what he needs to make up is terrible, but otherwise I don't know how to find out what they will want him to make up to qualify.