Using a Nursing Job Overseas to Fund Your Overseas Experience

Working as a nurse overseas is an economical and sustainable way to fund your overseas experience

Nursing is a transferable skill, especially if you are a fluent English speaker because Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and the USA are all experiencing an acute shortage of qualified nurses. This has resulted in an immediate opportunity for English speaking nurses to travel and nurse overseas.

Securing yourself a nursing job overseas will allow you to base yourself in a different region of the world and travel abroad from there. If you get a nursing job in the UK you will be able to easily explore Europe using the network of budget airlines that fly between the major European cities. If you base yourself nursing in Australia you can easily explore the South Pacific and Asia. I have done this successfully in the UK and am now based in Asia.

Working while you travel enables you to spend an extended time away from home and gives you a way to replenish your funds when you are running short.

Nursing Employment Opportunities Resulting from the Global Nurse Shortage

Many hospitals and other health care facilities struggle to find suitably qualified and experience nurses to staff their wards. This is creating increased competition between medical employers for the small pool of nurses available. This is creating an employment environment for nurses where they are sought after and head-hunted.

Because of this nursing shortage many countries are experiencing, and which is predicted to worsen to crisis proportion in the next decade, governments in developing countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and the USA are making it easier and less complicated for internationally educated nurses to enter these countries and work legally, both short term and permanently. Without these countries taking immediate measures to counteract the shortage of nurses in their own country the quality of healthcare being provided will fall considerably.

In order to take advantage of these nursing employment opportunities you may need to move away from the area or country where you currently live as the nursing shortage is global and this is creating a strong demand for qualified nurses worldwide. Most developing countries now have several visa options that are suitable for nurses who want to nurse overseas. The USA, for example, have 4 visa options for nurses to choose from depending on how long you wish to stay in the US.

More and more healthcare facilities are looking to nurses abroad to solve their recruitment crisis and this situation is only going to continue over the next decade or so. The time for nurses to move their nursing career abroad is right now, while there are so many recruiters who are desperate for nurses to fill their vacancies.