This Startup Helps Foreign-Educated Nurses Land Jobs in The U.S.
Podcast Episode
>>Listen to “How to Work in the U.S. as a Foreign-Educated Nurse (With Nelson Hurtado)”
Nelson Hurtado is the founder of the start-up company ANP Health. Nelson has a mission to support international nurses to make their dreams of becoming a nurse in the United States a reality by recruiting and placing foreign-educated nurses in several healthcare settings across the nation. Nelson has firsthand experience in what it means to leave your home country and immigrate to the USA in pursuit of chasing a dream.
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Career Crossroads
“I am originally from Venezuela; I came to the United States when I was around 18 years old.” — Nelson Hurtado on the Club Nurse Podcast.
As many young adults do, Nelson was grappling with what his professional future would look like. As an 18-year-old immigrant in America, Nelson started weighing his options and pondering how he would be able to stay in the USA and build a life of his own creation. He reflects on his gifted talents on the baseball diamond, the possibility of following in his father’s footsteps of becoming a surgeon, or maybe a career in marketing or public relations.
One of his directors of the international department planted the seed of becoming a nurse. Being from Latin America, the lens through which Nelson saw nursing was not one that particularly interested him. After some peer support and independent research, he quickly learned that nursing in the U.S. was vastly different from the nursing he knew back home in Venezuela — and so the journey began.
“I’ve always had this entrepreneurial spirit, since I was a kid,” Nelson reflects, stating that he would bring 2–3 suitcases full of Victoria’s Secret underwear home to Venezuela, often profiting thousands of dollars.
An entrepreneurial spirit, a nursing degree, the hunger for more, and the belief that where impact goes, money will follow all came together as Nelson went to work on creating ANP Health.
The Process to International Nurse Sponsorship
Nelson lays out the steps required to obtain sponsorship for international nurses who are interested in moving to the USA to live and work. He describes these steps as a generalization, stating that there are many micro-steps within each of these larger steps.
- Verifying that the international education of the nurse is equivalent to the education in the United States.
- Proficiency in English through tests that are accepted by the Board of Nursing in that particular state.
- NCLEX. Every international nurse MUST take the NCLEX.
- Finding a sponsor. Nelson states this would be the employer.
This is where ANP Health steps in to help nurses by building the bridge from wherever you are in the world to your green card sponsorship in the USA.
As if this wasn’t enough, Nelson and his team also launched the very first bilingual app for the NCLEX. With the help of AI, LearNCLEX is an app that helps the student using it translate from English to Spanish to better understand the content.
To listen to our full conversation, check out the Club Nurse Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or right here on nurse.org/clubnurse!
🤔If you're an international nurse, what part of the U.S. journey has been the hardest for you? Share your thoughts in the discussion forum below!
