Nursing Opportunities Overseas

Army nurse gets her WWII medals

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Alice Hargreaves Fay had some fun while she made history.

The former Long Island girl joined the Army Nurse Corps as a 19-year-old in 1939, the same year that World War II began in Europe. Two years later, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, which propelled the United States into the war.

Fay studied nursing for three years. By 1942, the nation was pouring all of its resources into the war effort, which opened up opportunities for women in the military.

Fay first deployed to England in 1944. She cared for casualties from the Battle of the Bulge and later worked in hospitals in France and Germany. But she did not receive three military awards that she had earned until Monday. That's when Rep. Chris Gibson , R-Kinderhook, presented the 88-year-old former first lieutenant with the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with Bronze Service Star , the World War II Victory Medal and an Honorable Service Lapel Button in a ceremony at her home in the Wesley Community Health Care Center .

"All service people were supposed to get medals," Fay said. "A lot of us didn't. There was a lot of stuff going on."

Nearly 60,000 women in the Army Nurse Corps cared for wounded American servicemen from the front lines of World War II in hospitals across Europe. The nurses served under fire in field and evacuation hospitals and on trains, ships and medical transport planes. Their dedication led to greater opportunities for American women after the war, Fay said.

Nurses received more than 1,600 medals and citations during World War II for administering care. Sixteen medals were awarded posthumously to nurses who died as a result of enemy fire. Thirteen other flight nurses died in weather-related crashes. A total of 201 nurses died while serving in the Army during the war.

Fay's primary duty was to treat wounded soldiers from the front lines. "One thing that was very tough for her was to care for the guys," Fay's son, Edward Fay of Niskayuna, said at Monday's ceremony. "It reminded her of the guys she knew from high school. She knew two or three of the soldiers who died in the war."

But wearing her old Army jacket and a beaded necklace before about 50 family members and friends, Fay said Monday that she had great memories from her time overseas, even if war was painful and hard.

"Everybody was going. Everybody was helping," Fay said. "We worked hard but we had a good time, too. Units had parties.

Your Medical Future » Nursing Jobs Overseas Opportunities for ...

]]>

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.

Nursing

Nursing Opportunities Worldwide, Building a Successful Career

Nursing, from concept to practice

Empire of care, nursing and migration in Filipino American history

Nursing times, Nursing mirror