When registered nurse Raquel Luague began researching American hospitals and agencies that would help her immigrate from the Philippines, she had two things in mind: a good education for her son and the challenge of proving to herself "that she could be a good nurse across the globe."

Choosing St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta was easy.

"Do you believe in fate?" she asked. "My son's name is Joseph, named after St. Joseph. I chose this hospital for its value system. I'm Catholic, so working here was very attractive to me. I figured it wouldn't be difficult to fit in."

Nurse manager Susan Axelrod (left) and Raquel Luague look at continuous renal replacement-therapy test questions in the dialysis unit at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Once Luague was chosen for a position at St. Joseph's, she still had to pass the TOFEL (an exam to evaluate her skills and knowledge), take the National Council Licensure Examination in Guam (a three-hour trip that required U.S. Embassy approval) and get through the immigration process. It took almost two years but was worth it, she said.

Luague and five other Filipino nurses and their families traveled to St. Joseph's together. "An entourage from the hospital met us and our families at the airport and transported us to our hotels. We got the red-carpet treatment," Luague said.

Someone even brought each nurse a rice cooker and bag of rice.

"From the beginning, I knew Raquel would be a good fit," said Susan Axelrod, RN, nurse manager for Unit 4-West and Dialysis. "I could tell from the way she expressed herself, her vast experience in med-surg and the fact that she'd been an instructor, that she would be a strong member of our staff."

Training with two preceptors, Luague was surprised to find that the medical technology she'd read about in her nursing texts in the Philippines was actually used in the United States.

"You learned the book to pass the exam, but when it came to actual nursing, you had to be creative, because the technology in the Philippines isn't there," she said. "I've really enjoyed seeing advanced technologies firsthand and using them."

Since 2002, she has moved into the specialty of dialysis, taught new processes to other nurses, had a second child and become an officer in the Philippine Nurses Association.

"I help other Philippine nurses get acclimated to their new home in Atlanta," she said. "We have a really strong community here, so it doesn't take too long to find where to shop, to socialize and feel a part of the city."

Her work environment and the quality of her son's school have been all that she expected and more, but she's still sometimes "blown away" by materialism in the Unites States.

Someday Luague hopes to bring her parents to the United States, and, after her children finish college, to retire and move back to the Philippines.

Luague considers herself lucky.

"I was given the chance of a lifetime," she said. "I got to see both sides of the globe, grow and learn to be happy wherever I am. After five years, I'm still at St. Joseph's. That speaks volumes, doesn't it?"