nursing?

africabound

5-Year Member
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May 19, 2010
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Hey, I'm new to this website. I'm interested in becoming a nurse for the navy, and am wondering one thing: is nursing offered at the naval academy? I'm currently a junior in high school, and am very interested in applying to the naval academy, if I could pursue nursing. Some general information about the academy and/or suggestions about applying would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
I don't think any of the service academies offer nursing as a major. However, I believe there was a recent thread on the ROTC forum about two Air Force Academy grads that went to Vanderbilt for nursing after graduating from the AFA with a different degree. Might be something to look into.
 
No, nursing is not offered at USNA. However, I urge you to check out the Navy ROTC web site. NROTC has a nursing option, in which you state up front that you want to major in nursing. In addition to the colleges and universities that have standard NROTC programs, some schools offer NROTC-nursing-only programs. A friend of ours is a Midshipman in the NROTC nursing program at Villanova, and she loves it!
 
The only realistic way to become a nurse out of USNA is to graduate, complete your 5 yrs of active duty, and then go onto nursing. USNA produces MDs and the occasional DDS but not RNs.

As stated above, NROTC has a great program specifically for nursing accession. You might also post your question on the ROTC boards -- not sure if any nurses frequent them but someone who did NROTC might have more insight.

You can also contact your local USN officer recruiter -- he/she is in the phone book. :) There usually is a recruiter dedicated to medical recruiting. He/she might have helpful information.
 
The military Health Professions Scholarship Program is excellent. I believe Navy commissioned officer nurses are BSNs, and RNs are usually civil service or contract civilians. That's just my knowledge from having a done a temporary stint at a Navy Recruiting District staff and sharing office space with the officers who handled healthcare provider commissioning, recruiting and scholarship programs.

Navy gets its nurses through BSN programs with the HPSP and NROTC slots, as well as direct commission of degreed nurses already practicing. There may well be a USNA grad who, at some point in his or her career, changed lanes and entered Navy nursing, but they likely left active service to return to school and then came back in.


See below link:

http://www.navy.com/navy/careers/healthcare/nurse/

You can click on a "find a recruiter" link to get in touch with the Navy officer in your area who handles health professional scholarship and commissioning programs.

If you continue to review threads on this site, you will see the service academies are generally designed to produce warfare officers for the various service branches and specialties, with health professionals such as doctors and dentists a very small percentage.

All the services have some form of HPSP program. Navy healthcare providers serve the Marine Corps. Googling "health professional scholarships and Army or Air Force" will probably get you there. Ditto for respective ROTC sites for each service. And, don't overlook the USPHS, the U.S. Public Health Service commissioned corps, including nurses in uniform. They serve everywhere. I ran into a USPHS dentist, in Coast Guard uniform, at USMMA at Kings Point. The USPHS commissioned corps is one of the seven uniformed services (but not an armed service), and serve in many different fields all over the world, enjoying many of the same benefits as the other services.
http://www.usphs.gov/profession/nurse/

Good luck!:thumb:
 
AFA sends several grads each year to an accelerated 1 year "bridge" program to get a BSN, currently the only service academy with this option. Otherwise you can apply to a Nursing program at a civilian college join ROTC and compete for an ROTC Nursing Scholarship. The Citadel is starting a BSN program in fall 2017 but wont be eligible to give ROTC scholarships for the first 4 years until full accreditation is reached.
 
Also good to read prior threads where others have asked about specific career paths. You need to understand that at any of the SA's you may NOT get your first choice of career since it is based on your overall ranking as well as how many slots are available in a given year for various selections (and they may not even offer certain paths). This is different from a civilian college where you are guaranteed a specific career path based on the major you choose.
 
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