charleighb

Hi everybody.
I am a 26 year old registered nurse from England. I currently work in Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine.I qualified in 2013 then I gained my PgDip in Midwifery in June 2015 but I do not ever want to work in maternity or obstetrics.
Anyways I digress. I am looking to move to Canada, specifically British Columbia. But I have no idea how to proceed. Do I apply to nursing board first then do NCLEX then apply for visa? I am clueless and confused. Any advice appreciated.

christmasoompa

Hi, and welcome to BE.

The best thing to do is to ask your questions in the main Canada forum, as we have quite a few nurses on there who will be happy to help you out. You can't work in Canada until you've gone through the whole licensing process, which I gather is a nightmare and expensive. Have a look at posts by 'Tirytory' who is a nurse that has been going through the process for the past 18 months or so, and who has written lots on the subject that would be useful I'm sure.

I'm not sure what a 'PdDip' is, but be aware that some provinces won't accept diploma trained nurses, I'm not sure if BC is among them but it's a question to ask if your qualification isn't a degree.

Visa wise, you might want to look at an IEC visa, as that would be your quickest and easiest route over to Canada, although not much point until you can work there, so I'd sort that first.

HTH and good luck.

charleighb

I did BSc nursing got a first then did post grad midwifery so I have to do 1 more module and it's masters in Midwifery but I don't want to do the module. But it's not really important.

And thank you for your help x

Silverdragon102

Does your transcripts show both clinical and theory hours in Paeds, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Adult? Canadian nurses are general trained so if you are deficient in any area you may find it very hard getting registered as a RN in Canada.

Tirytory has been through a lot trying to get registered and finally went through the LPN process and took the LPN exam last month.

Starting point would be checking out requirements for International Educated Nurses (IEN) and starting process with NNAS

Tirytory

So first of all you would need to apply to NNAS to see how they view your education. In general UK nurses even degree trained have some difficulty with their education being perceived as equal. After NNAS you would then apply to the provinicial body for registration- they would be the ones who put you forward for the exam or recommend OSCE, further training etc on the basis of what NNAS say...

Somewhere along this route, probably once you know you can sit an exam you would start looking at the visa route you take into the country. It's worth noting that BC is talking about recruiting international nurses and making the process easier, but are not releasing more information until Spring I believe. Worth keeping an eye on it though.

HTH.

KerryCullen1987

Tirotory, where can I find this info about BC and international nurses? Just so I can familiarise myself and watch out for more info.

Many thanks
KC

Tirytory

It's JSmth who posted something about it... Try a thread search. I think he posted it as a thread on it's own...

KerryCullen1987

Thank you very much 👍🏼

charlottyb

The Provinical government announced it, but no details have been released. here is the link to the CRNBC and the information on registering.


https://www.crnbc.ca/Registration/RN...s/Default.aspx

The process has changed since I came over in 2009, but I would take that final module and get that quaification, even if you have no intention of working in that area.

charleighb

When do you do your nclex then? Do I need IELTS if I am native English speaker?

charleighb

Basically what I'm asking is if there was a step by step process staring from scratch what would you do first of all of you wanted to nurse in Canada?

christmasoompa

As mentioned above, you might be better off asking this in the Canada forums, where lots of nurses are more likely to see your post.

Also Silverdragon and Tirytory have mentioned above the first step is to register with NNAS, so that would the first thing to do it appears.

Good luck.