Life After Nursing School

I finished my nursing degree back in April 2005 and passed the Nurse Licensure Examination shortly after that after roughtly spending 6 months taking formal review classes for the nursing board exams.

While some of my batchmates opted to start early in their nursing careers by working as staff nurses in tertiary hospitals here in my hometown, I decided to start reviewing for foreign nursing exams first.

Back then, my best option was to take the NCLEX-RN directly and bypass the CGFNS. And so I spent more than 6 months reviewing for the NCLEX-RN examination-- answering thousands of practice questions on my own while taking formal NCLEX-RN review classes. I took the NCLEX-RN in Hongkong sometime in August 2006 and a few days after that, I found out that I am about to be sent my State of Connecticut nursing license.

I was tired with all the reviewing I did but I still had to take the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exam. I needed to pass the IELTS for my visa screen certificate . And so, again, I spent a month or so reviewing for the said english-proficiency exam and passed it with a decent overall band score.

Many things happened after that: I found myself a US-based employer, patiently waited for my I140 application to be approved, renewed my State of Connecticut nursing license twice, provided end-of-life care to an immediate family member for more than a year, and obtained myself that very expensive Visa Screen Certificate from CGFNS.

A couple of months ago, I ventured into blogging by putting up a couple of blogs, one of which is a blog specifically for student nurses. I honestly think whipping up article after article on various nursing topics can be a bit tedious but thanks to the valuable help and untiring support of Pinoy R.N., I'm still blogging.

While I also want to further my nursing career by working as a staff nurse in one of the acute care healthcare facilities here in my hometown, I prefer to work at home right now for a variety of reasons. I'll just obtain actual hospital experience later and in the meantime, just apply what I learned from nursing school to the best of my ability. After all, nursing can be applied in a variety of settings, don't you think?

I know many of you disagree with me on this but we do have our own reasons for the decisions we make and what's best is that we try to do what we think is best for us. With this, I hope you have a good day and do drop me a comment or two if you have lots of time in your hands.

:)

Philippine Nurses to Render 2-Year Mandatory Local Service?

In one of the email updates I received from Pinoy R.N., I learned that Negros Oriental Reprensentative Ignacio Arroyo filed a bill requiring Philippine registered professionals to work in the Philippines for two years before they will be allowed to leave the country for greener pastures.

House Bill 04580 or the Mandatory Two-Year Domestic Service for all Filipino Registered Professionals Act was filed on July of this year. If this bill becomes a law, then professionals included in the PRC's Roster of Registered Professionals --nurses included-- won't be allowed to leave the country if they haven't complied with the required years of local employment even if opportunities to work overseas come knocking at their doors.

Currently pending in the lower house of Congress, Rep. Iggy Arroyo's infamous bill has been touted by union leaders as "absolutely unfair and discriminatory."

As for myself, I am wondering what on earth motivated this lawmaker from Negros Oriental to do such an irresponsible thing. It is not as if the Philippines has run out of skilled workers. If he did his homework before even thinking of filing the bill, then he would definitely figure out that there is, in fact, a shortage of financially-rewarding jobs for Filipino skilled workers.

Still, I am not concerned as things like these which are clearly products of haphazard thinking don't materialize and end up in the trash bin. I must admit, though, that I am sad that Rep. Arroyo wasted a lot of paper and money (spent on his staff's wages) on his infamous bill. He should have donated all those high-quality sheets of paper to this country's millions of needy schoolchildren instead. Or better yet, he should just give some of his money to the very professionals he targets in his bill so that they won't have to leave this country and their families behind to seek employment abroad.

Tsk, tsk. What a waste.