uk nurse wanting to work in florida

Silverdragon102, BSN · Jan 14, 2010

hi everyone im a uk nurse wanting to move to america (state of florida).i currently work in icu/hdu with a number of years experience, i have read the primer on the website for all that wish to work in the usa but i still have a number of questions that hopefully someone could help me with
1 i am aware of retrogression in the usa so what sort of timeframe are we talking about for an english nurse to get into the us no one can really give a time line at the moment. currently processing dates are 2002 and this can change each month. if i was still in the queue i had a pd of aug 06 and would still be waiting
2 does florida nursing board require a cgfns exam as well as a nclex as far as i am aware florida only require ces from cgfns or some other acceptable evaluation. will be stated on the florida website
3 can anybody recommend a nclex exam study book check out the nclex forum in the student section plenty of information there
i am looking to use an agency to go through the process eg (adieva ogrady peighton ).the main reason i havent applied up to now is my husbands pension he retires in 5-6 years at 50 , so i hope im being realistic with that sort of timeframe
thanks for any help at all sue

hi sue and welcome

i have answered in blue but really with retrogression you just can not predict how long it will take.

RGN1 · Jan 16, 2010

If you're set on one particular State DO NOT use an agency.

You will have to wait until the economy gets better before you stand a hope in Heaven of getting to the USA. Trust me I had it all - job offer (which I got myself), I-140, VisaScreen, N-CLEX but retrogression kicked in & my PD date of July 2007 is years away from being reached. Right now I think they're back in total retrogression but have been hanging around PD dates of 2003 for UK visas. To be honest I don't bother looking anymore.

Once things get better it may become easier again but right now don't waste your money or time. Keep an eye on things & then approach hospitals directly. Tampa General or those in Miami/Orlando are likely to be the 1st to start hiring again - whenever that might be. There are plenty of threads about going it alone, you can bide your time reading those! :-)

I couldn't play the waiting game & came to Canada - best decision of my life! Things are tough here too but luckily I got over in time!

sue3465 · Jan 19, 2010

thanks for your replies one thing i feel i have on my side at the moment is time as i said my husband doesnt retire for 5-6 years so i can play the waiting game as long as its not to long of course:uhoh3: .to be honest iam open to apply to few states not just florida .I love america so ive got to believe its worth the wait to settle myself and my family there.I would love to hear from anybody going through the process now and any advice they could give would be appreciated thanks sue

LiverpoolJane · Jan 19, 2010

Sue, you might want to make a start with getting your nurse training transcripts as that can be a big problem. It took me a year to get ATT (Approval To Test) as the old school of nursing is now a university and had a bit of difficulty with all the info on the form.

I have a US license although as already said it may be years before I am able to move to the US.

The PD (priority date) according to the current visa bulletin is Sept 02 for EB3, the Januray visa bulletin included the projected PDs at the end of the 2010 fiscal year and for EB3 the estimate is it will move to Aug 2005. This is not written in stone and it may change, for better or worse but you may consider this info a pertinent factor in deciding whether to start the ball rolling.

OGrady Peyton are no longer sponsoring nurses for the US due to retrogression, but you don't need an agency to get a job in the US. Many of the nurses on this forum have gone through the process without using an agency - I'm not one of them as I didn't know at the time it was possible to do it yourself.

Jane