I came to NZ in October 2018 from Canada as a registered nurse.
The process to come to NZ took me 24 months - getting all of my licensing details to the NZ nursing board was the most challenging part of the process.
Thankfully, settling into life in NZ was the easiest part. My first impressions of NZ were: very friendly welcoming people, relaxed lifestyle and beautiful scenery. The things I find best are the weather, natural landscape, beaches and the people.
What I miss the most is oddly enough...the snow, and my family.
There are more similarities than differences when comparing my role in NZ to my previous role in Canada. The healthcare systems operate very similarly and the role is essentially the same. The only big difference is Canada has Respiratory Therapists and NZ does not, but it has been fun and informative to take on that role myself.
The biggest thing that helped me to transition and that I am still working on is finding people in a similar situation to myself. Making friends and meeting people, finding a ‘family’ here has been the most important part of transitioning for me.
My advice if you are thinking about coming to NZ is just to do it, I have found it to be such a very rewarding experience.
