Filipino Nursing Herald

Both sides of the immigration debate in the US are set to hold rallies on May 1, Labor Day. The rallies come as the White House and US Congress continued to struggle to find a common ground on immigration reform. Immigration advocates, whose raliies last year attracted millions of participants, are set to hold similar marches all over the US. There are doubts, however, if the turnout would match that of last year. People on the other side of the immigration debate will hold marches on the same day, in fact, in some states, the groups are likely to cross paths. The turnout on May 1 would serve as an indicator of Americans' support of immigration reform. Washington has been busy meeting both Republican and Democrat legislators to push a proposed immigration bill that would provide amnesty to illegals already in the US, but stiff fines, back taxes, and a pricey fee for citizenship application, awaits them. The plan also proposes to do away with a previous policy that allowed immigr...

News about US Republican congressmen starting to back off from restrictive conditions they've earlier imposed on immigration reform legislation is good news for local nurses. This is a step forward towards the resolution of dispute over immigration reforms in the US. Although there are plenty more hurdles ahead, at least discussions, mostly conducted in closed quarters, have been productive. A Senate vote is scheduled in May towards the creation of an immigration legislation, to which the retrogression of Schedule A jobs (such as nursing and physical therapy) is closely linked. The immigration reform bill, the details of which has been kept under wraps while closed-door meetings have been ongoing, may include provisions concerning the retrogression or, if not, hopefully, will clear the path for pending retrogression-related bills such as the Skil bill and the Strive Act. Here are some links concerning the immigration reform updates: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/23/america...

Minority Nurse recently announced a list of top ten cities and regions in the US that offer the highest salaries and the most number of opportunities for nurses. Among the top ten include (in alphabtical order) Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Oakland, CA; Phoenix and Meza, AZ; Tampa and St. Petersburg, FL; and West Palm Beach, FL. Summary: Atlanta, GA Annual Mean Salary for RNs: $53,360 Cost of Living Index: 97.7 ( Lower is better ) Future Trends: Demand for nurses in Georgia will increase an estimated 51% from the year 2000 to 2020. Baltimore, MD Annual Mean Salary for RNs: $70,100 Cost of Living Index: 119.5 Future Trends: Demand for nurses in Maryland will increase an estimated 36% from the year 2000 to 2020. Boston, MA Annual Mean Salary for RNs: $70,460 Cost of Living Index: 136.4 Future Trends: Demand for nurses in Massachusetts will increase an estimated 29% from the year 2000 to 2020. Charlotte, NC Annual Mean Salary for RNs: $...

With retrogression in effect, Filipino nurses--wishing to work in the US--will have to wait until US lawmakers finally allocate new visas again. In the meantime, here's a valuable read from minoritynurse.com about the best cities in the US to start a nursing career. Some of the best cities include New York City (largest), Las Vegas (fastest-growing), Los Angeles (most diverse), Houston (most Magnet hospitals), Fort Myers and Cape Coral (largest population over 65). Click here to read the story .

The number of applicants for nursing schools in the US is so overwhelming, one college in California says it can only accommodate those at the bottom of its waiting list in 2011. Cuesta College officials say they have stopped accepting applicants for its nursing program and are looking for ways to expand their capacity. An executive of the California Institute for Nursing and Health Care adds that the problems in Cuesta reflect a statewide situation where too few education slots are available. In 2005, nursing programs statewide turned away up to 14,000 qualified applicants. Read the full story here.

It seems a number of visitors to our site were not able to download or open the list of Philippine nursing schools because the file was encoded in Microsoft 2007 format. Our good friend, Noel, brought this to our attention. We've already fixed the problem and the file is now downloadable in PDF format. You can download the file here . In case you don't have a PDF reader, you can get a free reader by following this link: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html .

Want a quick way to memorize the specific functions of each lobe of the brain? Here's a handy one-page bullet list, which you can print out, and use to quickly remember which part of the brain is responsible for short-term or long-term memory and more. Download this one-page document here .