HELP! UK trained nurse wishes to work in U.S

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me out; I graduated from a UK university with BSc in Nursing Sciences in 2009 (structured as 1 year foundation/general nursing followed by 2 years in adult nursing....I think this is the way most UK nursing degrees are structured) and have been working in surgical wards in the NHS since, giving me 2 years experience. I lived in CA for 9 years before coming back to the UK for nursing training and although I had to give up my green card, I still have my SS number and my husband is American, so I don't think the visa/immigration part will be too much of an issue.

I've started making preliminary inquiries here in the UK about meeting requirements to get authorization to take the NCLEX and have been sent a breakdown of hours required by the VT BON. It would appear that the nursing degrees in the US are more general than in the UK and contain elements that we would pursue as a specialty here, such as paediatric nursing, mental health nursing etc.

I'm wondering if anybody out there has recently moved from the UK to the USA and could give me some advice about how they went through the process? In particular, how does one find out exactly which components are "missing" from the UK degree and how does one address meeting the theoretical and clinical practice requirements in something like, say, paediatrics or mental health to an acceptable standard? I've googled the life out of this subject and just can't seem to find clear information about it, I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall before I've even started so any help/direction/useful links would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much!