Eighteen months ago, Katie Morgan was living in a cramped former council house in Torbay and travelling to work at the local hospital in a rusting car that often refused to start. Now she live in a large house-with swimming pool - in Phoenix, Arizona, and has two new cars.
Figures to be released next month from the UK Central Council for Nursing and Midwifery will show that 5,500 nurses emigrated last year.
Morgan,26 earned 14,000 a year at Torbay Hospital's cadiolgy department