Registered!

It's official. I am a Registered Nurse!

I logged on to the Virginia Board of Nursing website to check my status. I went from "pending license" to having a license number issued! Woohoo!  Feels great!

In other great news, I got the job! My nurse manager just called with the official offer (I was told on Friday to expect it early this week). I'll be working on a 30 bed telemetry unit that is primarily cardiac and neuro patients. I'll be starting orientation on July 23!  Now, I have about two dozen thank you notes to write to faculty and friends who provided references and/or put in a good word for me with those looking at my application. Plus, then there are all those great nursing instructors who helped me from start to finish!

How cool to get license confirmation and job offer all in the same day! God is good! I must tell you that I am SO GLAD that I went ahead and took NCLEX before starting work. Starting a new job is always a bit stressful for me. There's always so much to learn and remember, that my brain is usually shot at the end of the day. I knew it would be too hard for me to manage starting a new job and studying all at the same time, so I really forced myself to study and get the NCLEX over with.

Virginia permits new grads to work without a license within 90 days of obtaining their ATT (authorization to test for NCLEX), but it's up to the hospital to decide how they want to handle it. The larger teaching hospital in town does not permit new grads to start working as RN's until they have their actual license. They hire tons of new grads and it costs mega bucks to train and orient a new grad, that they don't want to take the risk of having a partially trained new hire fail NCLEX and not be able to work. The hospital where I'll work does permit new grads without a license to begin orientation with the expectation that they will pass NCLEX within orientation. But thankfully I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm registered. :)

So two great pieces of news today is quite a feat! Even better would be to get news that power has been restored at home. Been without power since Friday night. I'm presently crashing at my parent's home where they've got the benefits of electricity... WATER, AC, and internet.