CGFNS exam is becoming less attractive to US employers.

Applying for the CGFNS exam, waiting two months for the exam and obtaining the results two to three months after the exam, can take a nurse up to 6 months or even one year to complete. Test results take so long to be mailed to the nurse, that the deadline for the next exam will have passed. This means that a failure to achieve a score of 400, and the nurse must apply for the next exam. Then that nurse will have a another one year wait for the results of that exam. CGFNS exam results are not published/mailed to the nurse until after the expiration date for application the next exam. In addition, the CGFNS exam is expensive and it is only given three times per year. Last year, in Manila , Philippines, several thousand Philippine nurses completed the CGFNS exam. CGFNS does not publish the pass /fail rate for various countries. Current CGFNS application test fees are $295.00 However, one can estimate that Philippine nurses are projected by this writer to be providing at least $3,000,000 annually in revenue to the CGFNS for exams. Additional fees of $325.00 are paid for Visa Screen to the ICHP, a division of the CGFNS. If only 2000 Visa Screen application are sent from the Philippines annually, a very conservative estimate, that would represent $625,000 of additional revenue provided by Philippine nurses to the CGFNS.

Although, the CGFNS exam certificate will allow for the filing of the I-140,with an US employee sponsor, some US employees will require that the nurse pass the NCLEX® prior to departing and arriving in the US to start employment. At one point in the past, the CGFNS web site asserted that the foreign educated nurses who obtained a passing score on the CGFNS exam, was predicted have an 85% probability of passing NCLEX®. However, US employers are learning this is questionable. In fact, the published statistics from the NCLEX® indicated that all foreign educated nurses pass NCLEX® at a rate of about 40%. The CGFNS is a "paper and pencil" examination. The CGFNS exam may have a multiple choice question on a subject. The NCLEX® is a test taken on a computer and claims to evaluate the test takers ability in critical thinking on the various subjects. The nurse test taker must be able to identify the implications of signs and symptoms and what action is required of the nurse. The NCLEX® requires knowledge of the US nursing role as well as the role of personnel such as LPN’s. This will be a challenge to a foreign educated nurse who has not worked in US hospital.

Hospitals are discovering that the nurses who take NCLEX® after passing the CGFNS ,may not pass NCLEX®. Once the nurse has not passed the NCLEX®, the nurse must wait 90 days before retaking and about $200.00 in additional fees must be paid . US hospital employers are quickly learning to require a thorough and specialized NCLEX® review course prior to the NCLEX® examination. Some are actually requiring the foreign nurse hire who has passed the CGFNS exam, to obtain NCLEX® in Guam or Saipan prior to arrival in US, This is seen of late in advertising by foreign nurse recruitment agencies literature and web sites, that seek to provide foreign nurses to US employers. I believe that when NCLEX® is given internationally, that very few nurses will seek to take the CGFNS exam. There is an increasing trend for US employers to pay the fees for all test and requirements for foreign nurse hires. This is due to the competition for qualified nurses. If the employer has to choose between the CGFNS exam or the NCLEX®, employers will choose NCLEX®. Obviously, the employer will then have a known "RN" product. Those nurses who are currently arriving with the green card, and have only the CGFNS exam and must take NCLEX® in US, are facing delays until they can assume RN work. This foreign educated nurse may only work in a limited capacity because of these delays. If the nurse passes NCLEX® the first time, this delay may only be months. If the first exam is not passed, that delay may be months or years.

Licensure by Endorsement.

Those nurses who apply to take the NCLEX® exam through a state like Arizona that does not have a requirement of having passed the CGFNS exam, may intend to apply for endorsement into another state that does require the CGFNS. Thereby, the foreign educated nurse who has not passed the CGFNS exam, first applies to a state like Arizona. Then, after obtaining the Arizona license, seeks endorsement into this other state. Not all states provide for endorsement and the applicant must research each state and the exact requirements for endorsement.