Opportunities for Foreign Nurses in the United States

If you are looking to move your nursing abroad to the United States of America, then now is the time to do it. Hospitals in the USA are experiencing a staffing crisis, and this crisis is predicted to become worse over the next decade.

The nursing shortage in the USA is said to be caused by the many factors. On one hand there are many nurses reaching retirement age or choosing to retire early, and there simply aren't enough newly graduated nurses to fill all the gaps. And there is more strain being placed on existing medical staff because of the bubble of baby boomers reaching retirement.

This is great news for internationally educated nurses because they can now find nursing positions in US hospitals with ease. Hospital administrators are aggressively recruiting foreign nurses.

To nurse in the US, legally, there are many papers to fill out and different states have different rules. In order to qualify to register as a nurse in any state in the US you must meet the following criteria:

* undertaken post high school nursing education. This means you must have graduated high school and then gone on to do your nursing qualification afterwards.

* be a registered nurse or hold a license to nurse at home. This means that you are legally allowed to practice nursing in the country where you trained or the country where you currently live.

* have 1 year experience nursing in your specialty. If you aren't a specialist nurse in, for example, paediatric nursing, psychiatric nursing, neo natal nursing, etc, your specialty would be as an adult nurse.

* be able to communicate clearly in English. If English is not your first language, you will be required to provide evidence of your ability to communicate to the required standard. This means that you'll have to take an English language test in speaking, reading, writing and listening.

Should you meet these 4 critical pre-application criteria, you can be assured that you're a good candidate for getting a nursing job in the United States.

There are three visa options for nurses who want to work in the US.

Firstly you can apply for the much coveted Green Card. In order to qualify for a Green Card, you must meet all the criteria above, and sit and pass the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) examination. To get this visa takes the longest of the three options, but it is the better option for you if you want to make a long term move to the US. It is possible, with a Green Card, to move your nursing career to the US permanently.

Secondly, you can apply for an H-1B visa. To qualify for an H-1B visa you need to have at least a Bachelor's degree in nursing. If you have a vocational nursing qualification you will not be granted this visa.

The last visa option for nurses is the H-1C visa. The US government issues 500 of these visas to healthcare workers each year.