Excelsior and Texas

I also have very mixed feelings about EC, but I had to correct the person saying that people going through the program have no clinical experience.

I personally think the requirements for admission to EC should maybe be tightened even further, and that's my own personal feeling...not to exclude those whose licenses make them eligible for admission currently, but maybe to verify recent pertinent clinical experience in work. That would have excluded me from admission, which is okay. However, this would be quite the headache for the school, I'm sure.

I have to disagree with you KW TX because I have worked with plenty of nurses from the traditional setting, BSN, MSN, and sorry to say that they have been (my opinion + a few others) for the most part UNSAFE on the floor, have absolutely no idea how to manage in a crisis, nursing tasks, etc. The traditional RNs and LVNs great! because we mainly work the floor. But why is that? Because BSN nurses are drilled more on the didactic aspect of nursing and not clinical importance. Just as you said, Its one thing to complete theory classes but another to work on the floor. Not quite verbatum but you get the point. Not to say that all BSN, MSN nurses are not equipped to work the floor but just my opinion from my 8+ years hospital experience, and a few other collegues.

Please don't down play Excelsior College because you may be working next to one of their excellent grads very soon! and that will entail that your working conditions are adequately staffed, what might not be if Excelsior is taken away from Texas. And I do think that it is a heck of a lot harder to complete Excelsiors program than a traditional program.

If we could get them to understand what the CPNE is about, that might help. What does it cost to mail a carjack? Everyone who has an old paper Study Guide binder for the CPNE ought to pack it up, and MAIL it to the Texas State Board of Nursing! This could be our way of protesting this, and getting Excelsior nurses heard on this issue. When thousands of these huge binders turn up, that will get thier attention! Contact Excelsior alumni, and get them to send in their CPNE Study Guides. The more, the better!
Send them to:
Katherine Thomas, MN, RN
Executive Director
Texas Board of Nursing
333 Guadalupe #3-460
Austin, Texas 78701

Make sure you include a respectful note about how you feel about this.

I also live in Texas and unfortunately there are not enough bridge programmes for LVN-RN. Many agencies are not able to place LVNs in hospital settings and it is getting more and more limited to where an LVN can practice despite all the experience. Therefore Excelsior College is the only alternative to going to school and working. A lot of us do not have the luxury to quit working and going to school full time and the demand is WAY more than the supply.

I was encouraged by my managers at the hosptials I work at to go through EC to complete my ASN because of my clinical experience. I already have a BA in political science and wanted to go through an accelerated BSN programme at a local university, but due to funding, it was scrapped. There seems to be so many road blocks here in Texas which can be so discouraging. I only need a couple prereqs and then it is off to the main nursing courses.

The facility I work at has A LOT of nurses doing EC so there is a lot of support. I hope that TX does grandfather the nurses already enrolled and lets us take the boards,but if we all can't do it here, a lot of us will relocated to other areas of the country that are not so limiting and then TX will be in crisis mode by their own doing.

Thread moved to the Distance Learning forum, as that is its appropriate place.

Good luck to those of you who live in TX.

Update...for anyone reading the Texas situation is cleared up and Excelsior is good here for 10 more years. Also they are working on clearing up the clinicals situtation in the future. No details yet.

I have a bone to pick with those who say that students with EC don't have clinical experience. As others have said you have to have clinical experience-ALOT to enroll in the school. I have worked with new nurses from conventional programs and find they are not as competent as two of the EC students I worked beside who was a Paramedic and an RT before they enrolled. I was a hospital corpsman, Cardiovascular Tech, Respiratory Therapist, Paramedic, EMT and find it personally offensive that I am continually looked at by the nursing community and nurses that I am inferior to them because I don't have LPN or RN behind my name. Which I was also an LPN for 3years in California. BUt, because I got my nursing degree through the Navy and nontraditional education, I could not practice in Virginia. I have over 24 years of medical experience in more variety of practice and types of practice than many nurses with as much time in the field. I have seen new graduates that couldn't take a proper blood pressure with a manual cuff. They couldn't count the pulse. The machine was broken we were told.
Yet, I am still looked at as "less". I have helped patients with end of life issues, I have talked with families and comforted them when loved ones were ill and dying. I have helped change beds, done IV's, put in Arterial lines, etc, etc. I have a Master's Degree in Healthcare Administration/Provision. Yet, I have so many jobs tell me they want a Nurse. When is what I have done going to really count? I guess when I have RN behind my name.

Please understand, I am not trying to put down nurses. They are wonderful and I admire anyone who does that very difficult job. Just wish what I have accomplished would be valued as highly.

The EC grad I spoke with said she did her clinicals at her work.