4 Steps for Nurses Wanting to Return to Practice

After exploring the ideal travel jobs for a registered nurse, you might have decided to stop and are now planning to come back but don’t know how to. It’s never too late. Here are a few steps for nurses wanting to return to practice, if you do not know where to start.

How do I go back to nursing after a break?

1. You have to maintain your credentials. YOu must have your license and remain eligible for employment as a nurse. If you fail to complete your continuing education, you will be put in “inactive” license status and if you want to change this you are going to have to submit continuing education requirements within the past 2 years.
2. Once you have given all of these, you must ensure that your Basic Life Support is active. You could quickly search up on the internet some BLS renewal classes since most nursing jobs require a current BLS.
3. Some nurses choose to take a Nurse Refresher Course at this point, but you could also get into extensive programs with clinical hours to help you slowly ease back into the nursing game.
4. Now the final step is to start applying for a job! You could work at a home care or a long-term care facility.

How long of a break can you take from nursing?

You could take a break for as long as you would like, as long as you take refresher courses just to refresh your memory about the ins and out of being a nurse. But if your break wasn’t that long and you still have everything fresh in your mind, you could continue on as long as you know what you are doing.

What are refresher courses for nurses?

Refresher courses are some programs that were designed to update your knowledge of current nursing theory and clinical practice to make sure that you are competent as a nurse to re-enter a covational, professional, or advanced nursing practice. 

This is composed of didactic and clinical components, and it may be completed in an educational setting under certain time tables which depend on the course that you have chosen to take.

How do I refresh my nursing skills?

You could refresh your nursing skills by taking the following refresher courses. These are only some and there could be more depending on the state you are in and what they are offering:

1. Post-Graduate Course in Clinical Nursing Practice

This usually takes at least 4 months. This is a refresher course for new nursing graduates and non-practicing nurses who are seeking employment, where they could enhance their basic skills.

2. Post-Graduate Course in Dialysis Management

This is a 6 month course that specializes in dialysis for both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis for nurses who had at least 6 months of bedside experience.

3. Post-Graduate Course in Renal Nursing

This is a special course on dialysis and renal transplantation for nurses who also have at least 6 months of bedside experience. This course lasts up to a year to further prepare that nurse for all that is yet to come.

4. Postgraduate Course in Perioperative Nursing

Taking up 6 months of your life, this specialty course is for those nurses who are seeking expertise on how to care for their patients preoperatively, intra-operatively, and post-operatively.

5. Clinical Nursing Assistant Course

This course is equivalent to a caregiver source, and lasts upto 6 months.

6. Dialysis Technology Course

This is a 6 month course that tackles the fundamentals and advanced training in the operation and maintenance of the dialysis and reprocessing the hemodialysis machines.

7. Surgical Technological Course

This is hands-on training in surgical techniques, storage, use, and maintenance of equipment and supplies at the OPerating Room Unit, which take up about 1 more year of your life.

8. Health Aide Course

This is a basic course that shows you the standard first aid and the basic life support that are useful in both the community and hospital set-up. This course also happens to be a 6-month course.

Short Term Courses

1. Basic Life Supply: This course usually lasts for about 2 days.
2. Standard First Aid and Basic Life Support: You could take up this course for about 6 days.
3. Intravenous Therapy Course: This course usually lasts for only 3 days.
4. Monthly Nursing Updates

Requirements

1. Resume
2. Authenticates Transcripts of Records
3. Recommendation Letter from your Dream, Clinical Instructor or an Employer
4. NBI Clearance
5. Current Intravenous Therapy Card
6. Medical scans for Hepatitis Screening and Chest X-Rays
7. And ID Pictures