I have always been interested in medicine, but understand that all SA have a priority of first producing officers. However, I discovered very recently the Navy Nurse Corps and am really interested in it. Can anyone provide personal insight or details of it? Any answers are truly appreciated.
Navy Nurse Corps
- Thread starter USNA '16
- Start date
If you want to be a Navy nurse, you should check into the Navy nurse NROTC program. There are a number of schools that participate specifically to produce nurses, Villanova being one of them.
I could be wrong, but I am not aware of any options to become a Navy nurse directly after USNA. There are several other possibilities:
- do your initial deployment and ask for a lateral transfer (this has been done for officers to go to med school, not sure if it can be done for nursing school - KP?????)
- finish your initial service obligation after USNA, then ask for assignment to nursing school
- finish your initial service obligation after USNA, then use any educational benefits to go to nursing school on your own
I could be wrong, but I am not aware of any options to become a Navy nurse directly after USNA. There are several other possibilities:
- do your initial deployment and ask for a lateral transfer (this has been done for officers to go to med school, not sure if it can be done for nursing school - KP?????)
- finish your initial service obligation after USNA, then ask for assignment to nursing school
- finish your initial service obligation after USNA, then use any educational benefits to go to nursing school on your own
rkrosnar
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USNA '16
I agree with 2012mom? Back in 2007, when my DS sat for his NROTC scholarship, my daughter came with us. The local Coordinator spoke with my DD and going into NROTC and doing nursing. She was only a freshmen in high school, at the time. She decided to go into forensics, she will be attending Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania. And no she didn't do NOTC.
Good luck,
RGK
I agree with 2012mom? Back in 2007, when my DS sat for his NROTC scholarship, my daughter came with us. The local Coordinator spoke with my DD and going into NROTC and doing nursing. She was only a freshmen in high school, at the time. She decided to go into forensics, she will be attending Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania. And no she didn't do NOTC.
Good luck,
RGK
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- 20,590
USNA '16 - just noting your opening comment: I have always been interested in medicine, but understand that all SA have a priority of first producing officers. USNA's main mission is to produce warfare officers. Navy nurses are most definitely naval officers, just not warfare. They are staff officers.
I am not aware of any direct to USNA-to-Nurse Corps options, unlike the Medical and Dental Corps options.
The Navy gets most of its nurses through direct commissioning programs after graduation from a civilian college or university with a BSN program. Check out the very generous Health Professional Scholarship program at this link:
http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/nurse.html
As noted by other posters, there is the NROTC Nurse Corps option, easily searched for by using "NROTC Nurse Corps option."
Take a look at this typical BSN university website; I think it's a good example of a typical program.
http://web.usf.edu/nrotc/nrotc/Nurse-Corps.htm
The long way to do this is attend USNA, enter a warfare community, leave active duty after obligated service time and use GI Bill/veterans' educational benefits to return to school for BSN, then ask to come back in as a Navy Nurse. No guarantees. Though there are lateral transfer boards allowing for transfer between one officer community into another, I don't think that is the norm for Nurse Corps. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule out there, who have somehow done their "day job" as a warfare officer and completed required courses during off-duty hours to progress toward a BSN and ...but that would be very rare.
For even more down-the-road knowledge, check out the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) Graduate School of Nursing. Military healthcare providers have a long and storied history of serving, and a career in Navy Nurse Corps can be long and rich.
http://www.usuhs.mil/gsn/index.html
If you really want to be a naval officer in the Nurse Corps (Army and Air Force have similar programs), the most direct path does not lie through USNA. Remember USNA is not an end goal in itself, but an interim and very powerful launching pad for a minimum five-year career as a warfare officer.
It's good to think about all the options. The more you educate yourself about all the options, the better able you will be to choose. One of the hardest things at your age is choosing among so many interesting paths. Good luck!
I am not aware of any direct to USNA-to-Nurse Corps options, unlike the Medical and Dental Corps options.
The Navy gets most of its nurses through direct commissioning programs after graduation from a civilian college or university with a BSN program. Check out the very generous Health Professional Scholarship program at this link:
http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/nurse.html
As noted by other posters, there is the NROTC Nurse Corps option, easily searched for by using "NROTC Nurse Corps option."
Take a look at this typical BSN university website; I think it's a good example of a typical program.
http://web.usf.edu/nrotc/nrotc/Nurse-Corps.htm
The long way to do this is attend USNA, enter a warfare community, leave active duty after obligated service time and use GI Bill/veterans' educational benefits to return to school for BSN, then ask to come back in as a Navy Nurse. No guarantees. Though there are lateral transfer boards allowing for transfer between one officer community into another, I don't think that is the norm for Nurse Corps. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule out there, who have somehow done their "day job" as a warfare officer and completed required courses during off-duty hours to progress toward a BSN and ...but that would be very rare.
For even more down-the-road knowledge, check out the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) Graduate School of Nursing. Military healthcare providers have a long and storied history of serving, and a career in Navy Nurse Corps can be long and rich.
http://www.usuhs.mil/gsn/index.html
If you really want to be a naval officer in the Nurse Corps (Army and Air Force have similar programs), the most direct path does not lie through USNA. Remember USNA is not an end goal in itself, but an interim and very powerful launching pad for a minimum five-year career as a warfare officer.
It's good to think about all the options. The more you educate yourself about all the options, the better able you will be to choose. One of the hardest things at your age is choosing among so many interesting paths. Good luck!
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You may also want to consider the U.S. Public Health Service....a little known uniformed service I appreciate.