Pulaski

I came from Yorkshire as a child, completed school in Gloucester, and uni in London. I lived in several rented/shared houses in west and SW London, never much more than a couple of years in one place, before eventually buying my own place and living there for just over four years, so never finding anywhere to put down roots.

I have now been 11 years in NC since we bought our home here, and feel more at home here than I did anywhere else. My accent, which has remained stubbornly rooted in Sheffield, stood out in Gloucester, and also in London, and not, I feel in a good way (seemed to detract from my appeal), the opposite is true here in the US.

TMR

I know, but the difference is you feel at home in the US having actually lived there for some time.

Jaywood

The course I will be doing at university is 50% practical and 50% theory. And I believe I will be covering all of the components (I could be wrong)

Nutmegger

But that's exactly it -- where your loved ones are. When you start a life with someone you love -- in whatever part of the world -- and make a home and start a family with them, doesn't that trump the relationships with the ones you left behind? I'm certainly not saying it replaces those relationships, but surely for everyone who marries, the new family that they create becomes the priority?

Uncle_Bob

My wife has two British female friends (nurses) who came over here as singles and married Americans.
I think your problem is that in the UK they don't (or at least didn't) have a degree in nursing. Any British nurse is going to have their qualification evaluated by the CGFNS. They will likely need to do more training. A RN level nurse over here does procedures like insert catheters and draws blood. Things a doctor would do in the UK.
Then they would have to pass the dreaded NCLEX exam. But the at the end of the day the job pays well here. My wife can work a night shift to the tune of $60 an hour.

TMR

It does, I'm talking about people who haven't lived in the US and instead are dreaming about a life there based upon extended holidays they've taken.

DebzinUS

Your UK adult nursing program will not be sufficient. You will need additional Peds/Ob and Mental health Nursing courses. Which as Silverdragon pointed out are not available in the UK, and VERY hard to find in the US. When I came to the US I started over. Obviously thats not ideal, but hey, I have a multiple US RN licenses now, and a UK registration.

Work on the eharmony option, and then go to nursing school when you get here.

Uncle_Bob

My wifes degree was in health and social studies. She came over on my green card but the hospital jumped on her when she went to a career event at the hospital. She started work immediately as an LPN or something at a lower level while the hospital paid for her additional education as well and also to the take the NCLEX exam for her RN. The biggest road block was CGFNS, they took over a year to do their part.

Pulaski

There have been nursing degrees in the UK since at least the early 1980's, though at that time fewer than 10% of nurses in the UK qualified via that route at that time. I do not know how many British nurses qualify by degree now.

Uncle_Bob

I didnt even get as far as a holiday. I knew i wanted to live here at a very young age after watching the movie E.T.

Pulaski

I think it was the Dukes of Hazzard that did it for me.

Uncle_Bob

Makes sense. Here hospitals are getting competitive, licensed full time RNs are now being required to have a degree in nursing if they don't already have one. They want the nurses to be seen to have the degree title on their badges along with RN etc. Extra tuition is around $18k of which the hospital will pay $8k.

Luckily my wife is only part time and is not required to actually have the nursing degree, yet. We hope it stays that way. I'm surprised they insisted on it for full time as they are short staffed enough as it is. Wifey is often asked to work at last minute for a shift at time and half.

Uncle_Bob

So you successfully scoured the internet for your daisy duke

For me Back to the Future had a part in it too. I was 13 and wanted a DeLorean.

Pulaski

Yeah, I can see how a car designed by Lotus and built in Northern Ireland would make you want to move to America.
(You added that bit!) ..... That came later, though the name "Daisy" wouldn't really suit Mrs P.

Uncle_Bob

Aye, I was 13 and had no idea. Its when you get here and find out things are not always as you expected you see.