'Borderline' students?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Ok, this is a vent. :(

In school, we have to participate in a survey about predicted college success vs home support systems, class load, work hours, etc. This is to receive a grant, and those funds will be allocated to help 'borderline' students succeed.

Borderline students? As in the students who can't pull off a 75 on an exam if their lives depended on it? These are the students we want to try to help graduate and be out on the workforce? I think its wrong to relax the standards and help those less intellectually focused to pass the program knowing that they will never pass boards and, if they do sneak through, they'll be horribly unsafe nurses.

Its bad enough that the minimum score on the ACT is a 20. One of my friends in school is in the program, right beside me, and scored an 18. WTF? What is the point of having standards if everyone doesn't have to adhere to them?

But no, now they are seeking money to hire special tutors and create college success courses for the students who can't seem to pass.

What do you think? There are admission standards, ongoing standards, for a reason... to 'weed out' the people who can't make it. Why cater to them, make it easy for them to pass, knowing they'll never be successful? To collect more tuition dollars? Improve their numbers of graduating students? It certainly won't improve the nclex pass rate.

People say I'm too hard on others. Ok, whatever. I do not want to work beside a borderline student who can't figure out a simple dosage calculation or doesn't know the difference between DI and DM.

Grrrr!

Specializes in Psych, Assertive Community Resource Team.

Sympathy= understanding someone's feelings because you have experienced the same situation.

Empathy= attempting to understand someone's feelings even though you have not been through the same thing.

I don't have to have had open heart surgery to know that it hurts and I don't have to be failing my classes to understand that some students struggle with concepts.

I agree that lowering standards is the most dangerous thing possible for the profession of nursing. Yes some people require a little extra assistance to achieve their full potential and that is great but lowering the bar only hurts them more in the long run. You can only be mediocre so long before it catches up to you in the real world.

I have some issue with the grant money only being used to aide the "borderline" students. What about the students who might be making a 92% but want to strive to hit a 98%? Who is there to help them when all resources are tied up in trying to drag underachievers through the program?

There have been times that I have wanted to instruction on some of the more advanced concepts discussed in lecture with the professor only to be told that she doesn't have time to "help an A student get an even higher A when I have girls who are barely passing". To me that is wrong. I pay the same tuition as everyone else and if I want to be the most educated nurse that I can possibly be, then I should not be held back by those who do not apply themselves as much as possible or were never qualified to enter the program to start with.

People tell stories of knowing a poor student who barely passed her tests becoming great bedside nurse. All I know is this, if you can't pass the ACT(an extremly basic test of simple skills people should posses before graduating high school) then I don't want you to calculate my titrating dose or interpreting results of lab values for my loved ones. Basic academic skills are basic academic skills. They carry you through your entire life, not just nursing school.

I'm not saying that people who struggle in nursing school are not smart, or kind and caring individuals. What I am saying is that their aptitude might lie in another type of field or their kind and caring bedside manner could be utilized in a less techinical way, like as a CNA or something.

Nurses have struggled too long for respect and recognition of how truly indepth and important our jobs are to allow lower standards to tarnish our reputation. IMHO.

Specializes in ER.

Well just let me say that the students in my nursing class that were sp freaked out about getting straight A's and would brag about it made the fact that you can look up licenses on line becasue a majority of them have had to take the NCLEX more then ounce!!!!! I would rather have the awsome nurse who was a B-C student then the one who got all A's and can take a great test in class.[EVIL][/EVIL]

Specializes in ED.

I went to school in a place that had a high amount of people who grew up in other countries. These people grew up taking tests that were vastly different than our tests and they had a very hard time taking our tests. If there is a program to help people who for what ever reason are having a hard time then thats wonderful! Because a person doesn't test well or has a harder time learning doesn't mean that they won't get the information.

Specializes in OR.
Sympathy= understanding someone's feelings because you have experienced the same situation.

Empathy= attempting to understand someone's feelings even though you have not been through the same thing.

I don't have to have had open heart surgery to know that it hurts and I don't have to be failing my classes to understand that some students struggle with concepts.

I agree that lowering standards is the most dangerous thing possible for the profession of nursing. Yes some people require a little extra assistance to achieve their full potential and that is great but lowering the bar only hurts them more in the long run. You can only be mediocre so long before it catches up to you in the real world.

I have some issue with the grant money only being used to aide the "borderline" students. What about the students who might be making a 92% but want to strive to hit a 98%? Who is there to help them when all resources are tied up in trying to drag underachievers through the program?

There have been times that I have wanted to instruction on some of the more advanced concepts discussed in lecture with the professor only to be told that she doesn't have time to "help an A student get an even higher A when I have girls who are barely passing". To me that is wrong. I pay the same tuition as everyone else and if I want to be the most educated nurse that I can possibly be, then I should not be held back by those who do not apply themselves as much as possible or were never qualified to enter the program to start with.

People tell stories of knowing a poor student who barely passed her tests becoming great bedside nurse. All I know is this, if you can't pass the ACT(an extremly basic test of simple skills people should posses before graduating high school) then I don't want you to calculate my titrating dose or interpreting results of lab values for my loved ones. Basic academic skills are basic academic skills. They carry you through your entire life, not just nursing school.

I'm not saying that people who struggle in nursing school are not smart, or kind and caring individuals. What I am saying is that their aptitude might lie in another type of field or their kind and caring bedside manner could be utilized in a less techinical way, like as a CNA or something.

Nurses have struggled too long for respect and recognition of how truly indepth and important our jobs are to allow lower standards to tarnish our reputation. IMHO.

Good points brought up in your post...A lot of the concepts in nursing school aren't rocket science. Dosage calculations, for example, utilize 5th grade math. Good note taking is a huge part of success also as well as being able to read at at least an 8th grade level. I am not completely unsympathetic to those who have difficulty- I have been helping out a friend of mine who knows the material cold but has horrible test anxiety. Many of my classmates though, don't do the assigned reading, talk during class, and put in very little effort in clinical. One girl got mad at me because I didn't have extra clinical forms to give to her and was always looking to use my calculator to figure out dosages. I can name on one hand the number of low performing students in my class that are exceptional at clinical. I know of one student who gets A's but is not so hot in clinical. The cold hard fact is that the students who generally get good grades get them because they work hard and put the necessary effort into their studies. This usually spills over into clinical because they are prepared. Of course, there are exceptions but lowering standards is not the answer. Offer supplemental help and those that take it seriously will use this help to boost them up to meet the standards. The lazy ones will be weeded out.
Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

Hmmm. I remember an honors student in my class who didn't understand that you had to prime new IV tubing before you change the old tubing.

She had a super-high GPA, though. :stone

Some of the best nurses I know were average, a little above average. That's not to say that someone with a high GPA can't be a good nurse, just that GPA is not necessarily an indicator of how good a nurse someone will be. There is such a thing as common sense, which can't be taught.

As my best friend said, "They don't put your GPA on your name badge."

Specializes in Geriatrics, Cardiac, ICU.

Oh, no they didn't go there.:uhoh3:

Are you serious?

please define "minority".

Specializes in Geriatrics, Cardiac, ICU.
please define "minority".

I think you know what they mean.:angryfire

such ignorance!

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

This is an old, old thread (dating back to 2003) that by the looks of things should never have been resurrected. I'm going to close it now. Thanks for your understanding.

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