Canadian Excelsior ADN grads

Paprikat · Aug 31, 2003

Hey, I looked in to it, too. It sounded too good to be true. The DLSII (Distance Learning) people thta put an ad in the RNABC magazine were in Burnaby and I went and listened. Alot of the LPN's there went to VCC and they never had set courses....(ie: Anatomy and Physiology, Psych, Sociology), their courses were "blended" together and this will cause them to take the entire program of all courses. My education was from Ontario and they were separate courses, so I got credit for alot and only had to take 7 courses through Excelsior. It is semi-expensive and you can't pay course for course. You have to pay for all of them at once and if you fail, you fail (this is through DLSII). I don't know if Excelsior will let you do course for course. You study and then challenge the exams which are written at Sylvan Learning Centre, which also costs about 200. Apparently is you do it through Excelsior, they send you alot of journals, etc. and you have to sift through them. This DLSII sends study packages that condense the courses, so you atudy what is important.

Once you are done that, you have to go to the States (ie: San Diego) and do a skills weekend. This is not as easy as it sounds. You have to perfect these skills SOMEHOW with no clinical, ect. to help you. There is a video you can watch and you can pay more money to go to say Seattle for extra practice. Apparently, it is tough and the fail rate is high (although Distance Learning doesn't seem to think so). You have three tries to go though this and if you fail the third time, that's it, you can never do it again.

That said.....you can go through this and RNABC has the CHOICE to not recognize your ADN and not allow you to sit for the provincial exam. The snooty RNABC educator person told me on th phone that "they look at all ADN's on a case by case sitaution" she said "We are STONGLY (emphasis on the word) looking into this program and recommend you go through a B.C. program (as if it so easy to get in!!!!). So worse case senario? You will be a fully qualified RN in the states, but Canada may not let you. You can however, STUDY your butt off and go write in Ontario, which has it's last sitting for diploma RN's next October. Ontairio does recognize this, but I know no one in Ontario that is doing it. It is sad that RNABC will take money for advertisement in their magazine and not care what they advertis, only to be so snooty about it. So I guess, it goes down to taking a chance...a chance that you go through this, and hope RNABC will accept you, if you choose to practice in B.C....I can't see how they would turn down a qualified RN with the shortage, but you never know.....

Let me know what you have heard!

fergus51 · Aug 31, 2003

RNABC is still very picky, shortage of nurses notwithstanding. There is a real difficulty in getting ADN degrees recognized when they are trying to make all new nurses in the province have BSNs. I wouldn't take the program unless you get a board of nursing in Canada to say IN WRITING that they will let you sit for the Canadian exam and register as a nurse there.

To register for the exam you have to go through the board of nursing in your province. They will assess your education and decide if you can write the exam (which is only done 3 or 4 times a year). Once you have passed, you register for your real lisence. Have you talked to RNABC or any other bon about this?