BEFORE YOU MIGRATE (FIVE THINGS TO KNOW) CARIBBEAN NURSES

 

There are five things one should know before deciding to embark on the migration process. Even though one does his/her research, there is only so much research as opposed to experience.

      Firstly, you could get very lonely. There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Coming over to the United States, one could feel so isolated and alone. I do not think it is only single people that have this experience because even if they come up here with their family at some point. This is because the culture is different. 

      Secondly is the culture shock because over here, they are different. Fortunately, nursing is nursing everywhere but even though nursing is universal, there are some things that they do in nursing, but it is done nowhere. No matter where you go in our world you always take a picture of vitals for certain disease processes. This is how you manage it; these are the treatment options.

       Thirdly, the roles of the nurses are different in the United States. Sometimes, we do our own Intravenous line (IVs) over here. Well, I know some hospitals have like an IV team that will come and do the IVs. If my patient were sick and I needed to give an IV, I would go ahead and try to pass it myself, but it was not our responsibility. Also, for consults, it is like if the patient is admitted and the general doctor, admitting doctor or the main medicine doctor who saw the patient, decides that he needs a surgeon or a cardiologist or somebody to see the patient, so he makes a consultation, in Jamaica the doctors spoke to each other. So, if he wanted another doctor to consult, he called the doctor. However, here, it is the nurse’s responsibility to take up the phone and call the doctors for appointments. If the doctors are supposed to see the patient and the doctors do not come, the nurse is going to be blamed because they are going to say, why did you not call the doctor and let him or her know that the patient has not been seen. That shocked me as a lot of things about nursing are different here.  

       Fourthly, in the beginning, things are going to be rough. It is not like a fairy tale, so it is going to be hard and tough. So, take care of yourself, save your money, and invest properly. Consult widely before making any investments in order not to lose all your money.

Fifth and final on the list and it is a positive. Make use of the opportunities, be smart about the choices because America is like a shiny bubble but on better scrutiny, it has more than meets the eye. The opportunities over here are endless. You can be anything that you want to be.

​

US Nursing VS Caribbean Nursing | What to expect working in the US

​

We are going to discuss the differences between nursing in the Caribbean and nursing in the U.S this would be helpful to those who are looking to move across or just interested in the difference. The very first change to get used to is the fact that you only get 30 minutes for a break on a 12-hour shift. In Saint Lucia, nurses are entitled to two hours of rest on a 12-hour shift compared to 30 minutes of break in the U.S so this was quite a shock of an adjustment.

 

The second difference is the uniform. In the Caribbean, muftis are worn, which is regular clothing, while going to work before changing to the nursing uniform. However, here in the USA, you go to work with your scrubs and barely anybody wears scrubs like full scrubs. Our uniform for the pediatric hospital where I work is t-shirts as we are children friendly. So, there are a lot of people wearing shirts with cartoon characters which children love and just to make it a more children friendly environment and just to just take out the seriousness of the uniform when coming to provide care for the patients. This was an adjustment because nurses, especially in the Caribbean, are associated with white.

 

The Third difference was the clocking in system. So, the clocking in system in Saint Lucia was pen and paper, so you manually write the time you get into work and when you leave you write the time that you left. Here, the clocking system is automated, so it knows that you are calling for you to clock in and it automatically registers the time that you clock in and of course you do the same thing when you clock out if not you do not get paid. One would have to force oneself to clock in or clock out, but the good thing though is that there is an online system where you can manually clock in like the time that you came to work if you missed that clocking period.

 

The Fourth difference is the staff distribution or staff responsibility. From the Caribbean, it is nurses and doctors and your ward managers. There the nurses are responsible for setting up ventilators, placing babies on the ventilators. Also of course, the doctors are there to help them to make sure the ventilator settings are correct, but it is the nurses setting up events. In the U.S., the only thing you are allowed to touch on the people's ventilator is the fio2 so the only thing you can adjust is your O2, you do not set up a ventilator, you do not touch a ventilator unless you are adjusting the O2. The nurses have nothing to do as there are respiratory therapists who are trained specifically to provide respiratory support, so this is their Forte this is their area they deal anything respiratory. Also, in the Caribbean, the doctor usually prescribes every drug or discontinues every drug regimen, but it is quite different here in the USA. So, it was a pleasant change. Other differences that were really a breath of fresh air include the nurse-to-patient ratio which s quite low. Also, drug administration is done via barcode to reduce mistakes drastically and documentation of patient's data is so easy because everything in the US is computerized so there would be no mix ups.

Everything said here is across the board for every single hospital and at least anyone would be able to relate with all that has been said, if you are up here already or you will experience it at your place of work if you are on your way to the U.S.