Actively licensed nurses: The NPA's of all 50 states allow actively licensed nurses to change jobs without any restrictions. An ACTIVE license means that you are competent to practice, even basic nursing skills. People change jobs all the time. Facilities are aware of that, expect that you disclose your experience or lack thereof, and they will implement an orientation plan for you as a paid employee. The job market is tough, even in nursing. If the hospital wants an experienced ICU nurse, they probably won't hire you and invest time in training you. If you haven't been at the bedside in a number of years, the hospital does like to see some proof of keeping yourself up to date on clinical issues. You are welcome to take the theory part of the course and receive a certificate for that. "Clinical rotations" are only legally defined in the nurse practice act as for those receiving degrees in nursing or mandated as part of license reactivation or discipline by consent order. We CANNOT legally place you in a clinical setting. There is no law covering us to do that. Asking for a 'clinical rotation' to update your job skills is asking a facility for free job training. No business trains you for free so you can work for someone else. Most facilities are quite put out by the request. Quite frankly, why should they invest their time, resources, and staff to upgrade your skills? We don't negotiate clinical contracts for actively licensed nurses.
State Board mandated refresher courses for remedial reasons: You will have a consent order or open complaint through your Board. You must disclose that to us and we will decide if we will accept you into our program. Consent orders generally have the same effect as a court order, although there can be differences by jurisdiction. It is important for you and for us to go over that document and make sure that we can help you comply with that order. If you are in disciplinary proceedings of any kind or have a complaint filed against you or a criminal background of any kind, you cannot do clinical with this company. Because you are in discipline, you are a far higher liability. We rarely find a hospital willing to take you, an individual preceptor willing to take on the additional liability, and it is unlikely that you can get the requisite malpractice insurance at a reasonable premium. Additionally, because you have disciplinary issues, the fair thing to do is put you with an actual trained nursing instructor who has the skills to develop an appropriate remediation plan for you. General duty staff nurses usually cannot do that, and it increases the risk of you not correcting your deficits and complying with the Board order.
You cannot mix and match states. Many states will not reactivate another state’s inactive license. Every state is different and if you are straddling states with licensure issues, you must pick ONE state to reactivate through and follow their rules to the letter. You cannot do clinical in a state where you are ineligible to obtain a temporary refresher license or equivalent. You cannot do clinical without permission of the state BON. It is practicing without a license. PLEASE NOTE: There is a difference between a state telling you they will accept clinical done in another state, and actually having permission to do clinical in that other state. For example, AZ will accept clinical done with this company in another state. HOWEVER, AZ cannot give you permission to work in another state. You MUST talk to the state BON where you wish to do clinical and ask permission to do a refresher clinical there, get a temporary permit, license or letter from them granting that permission. If that state doesn't require refresher clinical, the hospitals in that state may not agree to contract to do that for you.