Filipino Nursing Herald

Foreign-educated applicants of nursing licensure in New Mexico now need to get a Credentials Evaluation Service (CES) report as part of the requirements for NCLEX eligibility. The New Mexico Board of Nursing issued an updated application handbook, which takes effect this month. The NM BON has accredited four agencies that issue a CES report: Educational Records Evaluation Service , International Education Research , Joseph Silney and Associates , and the Commission on Graduates of International Education (CGFNS). When applying for a CES report, choose the agency that is also accredited by other states so that in case you need to submit one to another state (for endorsement, for example) you won't have to pay for a new one. Click here to read the new requirements for nurse applicants in New Mexico.

Welcome 2008. A new year has arrived and the question on most foreign nurses' minds is about the immigration prospects for foreign nurses to the US. The past year showed very little progress for nursing immigration and this year, an election year in the US, promises very little for a comprehensive immigration reform in the country. Continue to have faith, however, that there could be good news for nurses hoping to migrate to the US. If there is something that can be done this year, it should happen in the first quarter when the entire US is not yet consumed with election-related issues. Immigration expert Carl Shusterman , in his monthly newsletter, says that he is hopeful a legislation to bridge the nursing shortage in the US would be passed early this year. "House leaders have indicated that a bill to recapture unused visas for registered nurses and physical therapists will be considered during the first quarter of this year," Shusterman said. Let us hope and pray that ...

Filipino-American Belen Gabato has been appointed to the Nevada Board of Nursing, the first person of Asian descent to get the post, reports the Asian Journal . Gabato, who hails from Cebu City, first arrived in the US in 1964 and has been an active nurse-leader in the country. Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons will officially induct Gabato to office on December 14.

With retrogression, hospitals in the US have temporarily suspended their sponsorship programs for foreign nurses. Some continue their recruitment efforts but the most they can do is file for the Petition for Alien Worker or I-140. When visas become available, look for US hospitals to start sponsoring foreign RN again. Here are a few hospitals in Southern California that have sponsored foreign RNs in the past: Saint John's Health Center - www.stjohns.org Good Samaritan Hospital - www.goodsamcareers.org Tenet California - teamtenet.com Enloe Medical Center - www.enloe.org Antelope Valley Hospital - www.avhospital.org White Memorial Hospital - www.whitememorial.com Just like other hospitals, these facilities have put their foreign recruitment efforts on hold, but look for them once there's some relief from retrogression. IMPORTANT NOTE: This posting should not be seen as an endorsement, rather it is for information purposes only. Please do your own research into these facilities f...

The income tax system works differently in the US compared to the Philippines. Whereas, a nurse's salary in Manila will only be deducted with a single income tax based on his or her salary bracket (or based how much the person earns annually), their US counterparts, on the other hand, may be charged a Federal income tax (US Federal governement), a State income tax (state level) and, possibly, a local income tax (county or city level). The Federal income tax ranges from 15% to 35%. Florida, Texas and Washington charge the maximum 35%, however theses states no not have state income taxes. State income taxes range from 3% to 9.5%. The lowest state income tax is in Illinois, which has a flat rate of 3%. Vermont has the highest as it uses the maximum 9.5%. In California, state income tax ranges from 1% at $6,622 in income and increases to 9.3% over $43,468. Nurses whose basic pay exceeds the minimum for the highest bracket are usually in the 9.3% income tax category. Aside from the inco...

For those anticipating updates about retrogression, just continue to be patient. The US Congress is on break until Dec. 4. Today's the start of Thanksgiving in the US so everyone's on vacation mode at this time.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the biggest hospital staff employers in the US. They have headquarters in Oakland, California and are located in 9 states and in Washington, D.C. I've heard many good feedback about Kaiser and how they treat their employees well. But getting on board Kaiser is a difficult process if you don't have any hospital experience, particularly U.S. hospital experience. A hospital recruiter told me that Kaiser in South California does not sponsor foreign nurses, but Kaiser facilities in North California do. So, once visa retrogression is out, I would recommend those with years of experience to check out this potential employer.

Filipino nurses who are already in the US, might be interested to visit these scheduled career fairs organized by Nursing Spectrum . Although retrogression is still in effect, it won't hurt to meet possible employers when the visa restrictions are resolved: Upcoming Career Fairs for 2007 October October 18 Oakland, CA October 23 Las Vegas, NV October 24 Baltimore, MD October 24 Tinley Park, IL October 26 Edison, NJ November November 6 Dallas, TX November 8 Ft. Lauderdale, FL November 13 Seattle, WA November 13 San Diego, CA

Here's one of the best position articles I've read on the issue of nurse migration, particularly about Filipino nurses migrating to the US. Everyone please take time to read this and pass it on if you must. Here's a link to the article written by Joseph Curran: Open Letter to President Carter

Filipina nurse Lily Maniquiz Lara has been awarded the 2006 Best Nurse Leader in a search conducted by Advance, a US-based nursing publication. Lara was cited primarily for her leadership in the development and implementation of a successful program that reduced patient falls by as much as 80% in the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System's Nursing Home Care Unit 213-2, among her other accomplishments. The Philippine Nurses Association-America in Southern California had earlier awarded Lara with the Excellence in Nursing Management and she had been previously awarded the Excellence in Nursing Innovation in 2004. Advance also cited Lara's effective management style, which helped her get a 95% staff satisfaction mark in a survey conducted by the publication. "When it comes to pulling people together to get the job done, Lara relies on her innate ability to connect with a wide variety of personalities to create trusting relationships," Advance writer Luke Cowles wrote...

The New York Times and Vault.com offer an excellent collection of anecdotal articles about what goes on in a typical day for various types of jobs in the US. So, while waiting for a relief from the retrogression blues, let's take a peek into a typical day of a medical-surgical nurse in the US. Dan Bratton, a registered nurse who works on the medical-surgical floor of the Good Samaritan General Hospital in New York, lets us in on a typical day for him at the hospital. Read about Bratton's day here .

Businessweek today reports that the US Congress is contemplating a possible legislation that would provide additional green cards for skilled workers. Representative Zoe Lofgren, who serves as the chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration, confirmed that there are informal discussions going on among congressmen regarding the increase in yearly green card allocations by at least 100,000. Recent revelations that the US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has not been able to issue all of the alloted visas for the past years because it lacked the resources to process all of the applications have prompted congressmen to initiate the discussions. The USCIS recently admitted that 10,000 of the 140,000 green cards that were allocated last year were never given out. Without new legislation, these visas can not be issued anymore. Over the last 10 years, it is estimated that as many as 170,000 green cards have been unused. The current discussions in Congress are focused on po...

The U.S. News & World Report has announced the results of its annual survey of the Best Hospitals in the U.S. Johns Hopkins in Baltimore has again come up on top, followed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The survey ranks the best places to seek medical care, not the best places to work for as a nurse, but often most of the top hospitals also offer superb nursing opportunities. After you look up the survey, check out this interesting article, " Your New Best Friends, the Nurses ", as well.

The big news today is that the US Department of State has allowed the filing of Adjustment of Status (I-485) until August 17. It rescinded the July 2 Visa Bulletin which took back an earlier announcement that employment-based visas would be available by July. Applicants whose I-140s are current and are in the US for at least three months may already file for AOS until the cut-off date. The August Visa bulletin , however, shows that all employment-based visas would be unavailable and this is expected until October, which is the start of the agency's fiscal year.

New Zealand is a beautiful country. Its breathtaking landscape and unpolluted air are only a few of the things to love about this country. I've thought about moving to New Zealand even before I took up nursing and now that I have a higher chance of getting into the country with a nursing degree, the temptation is more intense, especially since there's so much uncertainty regarding the US nursing industry right now. So, when I was asked few days ago what I think about moving to New Zealand, I already had a ready answer. If you want to take out the uncertainty and want to move out in a definite time, New Zealand looks very promising compared to the US, where there's no telling when the retrogression will end. Applications for NZ are pretty much very straightforward--just get all the paperwork done and you've got high chances of landing a nursing job there, especially if you already have some work experience tucked under your belt. (Although experience is not required b...

I doubt if robots would ever perform patient rounds for nurses, just like what they're doing for some doctors right now. A more intriguing question would be: would doctors be able to use robots to see patients when they're far away if there were no nurses at the bedside to carry out their orders? What do you think? (Photo is by the Associated Press)

While waiting out the retrogression, now is the best time to complete all your documents, get the NCLEX done (if you haven't done so), and perhaps earn some work experience (if you're not employed yet). Although not all employers in the U.S. require experience, it'll be good to boost your own confidence especially if you're a young fresh graduate. Don't let the retrogression get you down, the worldwide nursing shortage won't be gone in a day. Read this story , for instance, of a hospital in Southwest Florida which is contemplating international recruitment efforts. An excerpt from the article, reads: International recruitment . Lee Memorial brought in 54 nurses from India who were under contract with Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center and Gulf Coast Hospital before Lee Memorial purchased those two facilities. If the nurses work out — and by all appearances they are — Lee Memorial might again look overseas for staff. Other data to think about: Hospitals ar...

A new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers says the U.S. medical workforce system needs resuscitative care. It says that even though there are more doctors and nurses today than ever before, they are not being trained, distributed or deployed efficiently. A huge decline in the number of nurses will begin in less than three years but hospital employers are still in denial about just bad nurses feel about their work conditions. Read the official media release on the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report here .

We all know how the U.S. Senate shot down a proposed immigration reform bill that sought to establish a guest-worker program, not to mention legal status for 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. However, I'm sure not everyone knows that the American Hospital Association (AHA) was actually against the immigration proposal. Although this may be old news for some and perhaps, now immaterial because of the failure of the immigration bill, I'm still posting a link here to the article on AHA's position for the curious.

This September, Filipino-American Zenei Triunfo Cortez , will officially join three other women on the President’s Council of the California Nurses Association, and become the first Filipino-American to lead the largest union of nurses in the U.S. Cortez was 19 when she migrated with her family to the U.S. in 1974. With over 25 years experience as a nurse, Cortez will spearhead advocacy efforts for over 75,000 registered nurses in California, where nurses recruited from the Philippines have become major contributors to U.S. healthcare.