Allowing Corpsman to Become Nurses

Specialties Government

Published

Watching the Presidential debate tonight and a statement by Obama made my head turn. He was relating a story when a corpsman was stating that he has treated wounded soldiers but when he became a civilian he could not use his training or experience to count towards becoming a nurse (unknown which kind). The corpsman was upset that he had to start his education/training from the beginning.

Obama stated that the requirements to be a nurse (assumed licensure/NCLEX requirements) should be changed to allow corpsman to become nurses (did not state which kind).

Any thoughts?

There's no real irony. Obviously, I wasn't aware that I'd get to skip point A.

*** Maybe you didn't know but you should have exceted that would be true. It is a waste of time and money to teach people things they already know well. Very few people, other than you, seem to think it's a great idea to wast time and money (your tax money since vets will likely be in college on the GI Bill) to teach people things they already know. Much more efficient to allow them to deomstrate their competency and then move on to teaching those things their education and experience thus far haven't provided. My nursing school required college algebra. However anyone who could prove they were already competent in college level algebra but passing an exam was allowed to skip the 3 credit math class. To most people it would seem obvious that this should be so. Obviously, as this discussion has demonstrated, not everybody agrees.

Why corpsmen shouldn't also be allowed to demonstrate competency on the things they know and then be allowed to move on to those things lacking in their training on their path to becoming an RN I don't understand. You haven thus far expressed any reason why this should not be so, except that you don't like it.

If I should've known that would be true then that would make me a hypocrite. If I don't think corpsman should be able to skip college courses then why should I think civilians would be able to skip the basics? Anyhow..

Nursing already has some of the lowest educational standards compared to other professions. I'm assuming you would think "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." So, if corpsman should be allowed to "demonstrate competency" then everyone who feels they are competent in the realm of nursing or any other area should be able to as well? The bookworm who reads law books should be able to sit for the bar exam? Should prisoners be allowed, or would they be exempt?

Not to mention, there are people on waiting lists to get into nursing schools, and people who are rejected because of their grades. Do the corpsman get in line, or do they even need to apply? Do we waive the GPA requirements for them too?

It's just not plausible. Many professions have a licensing exam that one has to pass at the end of their training (nurses, lawyers, teachers), but before being able to even sit for that final exam, they have to demonstrate competency over and over...and over. I don't condone ANY profession being able to skip courses and being deemed competent because they were able to pass a test. On a lucky day, someone can pass a multiple choice test with their eyes closed. There is much more to an education than a standardized test.

If anything then the military should make it so that their training aligns with the BON standards.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

If I should've known that would be true then that would make me a hypocrite.

*** OK, maybe what I should have said is that most reasonable people would have expected........

If I don't think corpsman should be able to skip college courses then why should I think civilians would be able to skip the basics?

*** My guess is that you haven't thought the matter through

Nursing already has some of the lowest educational standards compared to other professions. I'm assuming you would think "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." So, if corpsman should be allowed to "demonstrate competency" then everyone who feels they are competent in the realm of nursing or any other area should be able to as well?

*** Well that is already the way it works. For example LPNs are not required to relearn those things in the RN program that were covered in their LPN program.

The bookworm who reads law books should be able to sit for the bar exam?

*** That would be the same as saying that a corpsman should be able to sit for the NCLEX-RN. The answer to both is of course not. Nobody is advocating for that.

Should prisoners be allowed, or would they be exempt?

*** Irrelevent and off topic questions.

Not to mention, there are people on waiting lists to get into nursing schools, and people who are rejected because of their grades. Do the corpsman get in line, or do they even need to apply? Do we waive the GPA requirements for them too?

*** Why would we waive GPA requirments? Who is advocating for that? As for waiting times, why shouldn't they be allowed to get in the line while still serving if high school students can be in line (and they can in my state). While a different subject than the one we have been discussing I would be fully in favor of giving the veteran a leg up on the waiting lists. After all we all benifit from the time they served.

It's just not plausible.

*** It's not only plausable but practical.

Many professions have a licensing exam that one has to pass at the end of their training (nurses, lawyers, teachers), but before being able to even sit for that final exam, they have to demonstrate competency over and over...and over.

*** Yes exactly the way is should be and nobody is advocating for anything different.

I don't condone ANY profession being able to skip courses and being deemed competent because they were able to pass a test. On a lucky day, someone can pass a multiple choice test with their eyes closed. There is much more to an education than a standardized test.

*** Ah well luckily for the rest of us you are very obviously on the wrong side of this, as evidenced by the very exsistance of the CLEP program and the vast number of colleges that accept CLEP credits. Strong evidence that the vast majoriety of people in education disagree with your position. Even more evidence is is that WGU even exsists.

Knowing and understanding the subject matter is far more important than how one came to know it.

*** Ah well luckily for the rest of us you are very obviously on the wrong side of this

Apparently not. ;)

Specializes in Emergency.

It's not clear to me what part(s) of nursing school corpsman should get credit for through experience. Could someone outline how that would work?

I think corpsmen should absolutely allowed to be nurses if they want. After they completed their prerequisites and two years of clinicals/nursing school.

As a nursing community there is so much strife and whining about how we can all get to the same spot (nclex rn) in different ways, diploma/ASN/BSN. Can you imagine if we add in corpsmen being able to "clep" out of nursing school?

I don't know if I think they should be able to skip over what we learn in the very beginning (bed baths, ambulation, skin assessment, comfort care). I really think at the very core of nursing, it's different than a medic. They shouldn't be cheated out of that aha! moment that most of us get in the beginning of nursing school, when we realize THIS is what nursing is about. Not IV skills, foleys, etc.

I would think corpsman would be the top of their class, so they'll have a leg up on their colleagues. Use the GI bill, get a free education, become a nurse.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

As a nursing community there is so much strife and whining about how we can all get to the same spot (nclex rn) in different ways, diploma/ASN/BSN. Can you imagine if we add in corpsmen being able to "clep" out of nursing school?

*** CLEP can't be used for nursing classes. Just general education requirments at the lower level. NOBODY is suggesting they skip nursing school.

I don't know if I think they should be able to skip over what we learn in the very beginning (bed baths, ambulation, skin assessment, comfort care). I really think at the very core of nursing, it's different than a medic.

*** Actually EXACTTLY what they learn. Same as you did. They should not have to waste time learning what they already know, and have been practicing for years. Bedbaths? Ambulation? Comfort care?. Those are exactly what a corpsman working in a hospital would have done, under the supervision and teaching of RNs for years. When I worked as a medic in an army hospital my roll was almost exactly the same as an LPN in a civilian hospital. Prefromed assesments (or actually data collection) and report finding to the RN, passed PO meds, bed baths and ADLs, ambulating surgical patients, teaching new moms how to bath and care for their babies, take physician orders over the phone, call and report changes in patient condition to the physician. Administer PRNs etc.

As it is now corpsmen who can show they have spent a certain amount of hours working in different, specified units of a hospital, under the supervision of RNs and MDs, can challenge the LPN NCLEX in a few states. That is what i did and passed effortlessly. Same for my buddies who took it with me. In addition ACE (American Counsil of Education) looks closely at military training programs and recommends college credit for training. For example ACE recomends 3 credits in physicial education for passing the army's basic training. Some school accept these recommended credits, some don't. This should change and those credits should be required to be accepted by all public colleges. When I left the army ACE recomended a total of 83 college credits for training I had recieved in the army. I chose a Wisconsin community college that would accept them. Across the river colleges in Minnesota tend to accept none of them. That is wrong.

I would think corpsman would be the top of their class, so they'll have a leg up on their colleagues. Use the GI bill, get a free education, become a nurse

*** The GI Bill is not free education. It is more a defered compensation plan. They already worked and earned that compensation. It's not a gift, it's compensation for services rendered.

Crud, it erased my message.

Short version:

I was addressing the original concern about Obama wondering why corpsmen could not challenge the NCLEX-RN after returning from the military without further education.

PMFB-RN,

you were able to skip some general education courses and then sat for the LVN boards and then did LVN -> RN. Not at all what I was addressing.

GI bill = deferred compensation plan for services rendered is a better way to word it. I understand they earned it. But free was easier for me to say. :)

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

Crud, it erased my message.

*** Don't you hate that?

Short version:

I was addressing the original concern about Obama wondering why corpsmen could not challenge the NCLEX-RN after returning from the military without further education.

*** The veteran that posed the question to Obama wasn't asking for that. What he was asking is why he had to start as if he were a new high school grad. Those coprsmen served under nurse corps officers (RNs)in the military. They know very well that their job is not the same as that of an RN. As for Obama's off the cuff response, I very much doubt if given even a few seconds to think about it would realize corpsmen are not RNs. It's no supriose to me that the young veteran in question was from Minnesota who, along with some other states, seems to go out of their way to make further education for veterans difficult.

PMFB-RN,

you were able to skip some general education courses and then sat for the LVN boards and then did LVN -> RN. Not at all what I was addressing.

*** Well I didn't exactly skip some general education requirments. I got credit for some from my army trasncript (like for A&P) and CLEP'ed most of the rest. Yes I did complete one half, the second half, of an associated degree RN program.

GI bill = deferred compensation plan for services rendered is a better way to word it. I understand they earned it. But free was easier for me to say. :)

*** I am happy you see it that way too.

Specializes in FMF CORPSMAN USN, TRUAMA, CCRN.
Not to mention, there are people on waiting lists to get into nursing schools, and people who are rejected because of their grades.

It's just not plausible. Many professions have a licensing exam that one has to pass at the end of their training (nurses, lawyers, teachers), but before being able to even sit for that final exam, they have to demonstrate competency over and over...and over. I don't condone ANY profession being able to skip courses and being deemed competent because they were able to pass a test. On a lucky day, someone can pass a multiple choice test with their eyes closed. There is much more to an education than a standardized test.

Only from your quote: [Many professions have a licensing exam that one has to pass at the end of their training (nurses, lawyers, teachers), but before being able to even sit for that final exam, they have to demonstrate competency over and over...and over.] So the person that demonstrates competency, the first time around, what becomes of him or her? The instructor utilizes that person to help teach the rest of the class. I know, because I was just such a person, not bragging, just a statement. I had to attend my clinicals just as everyone else did, but my instructor was not constantly checking on me. I had to be checked off on my skills checks, as did every student, but after that I was left to care for my patients. There were a couple of rotations where my experience was lacking, OB/GYN, there weren't many Marines giving birth in Nam back then, so I needed to put a little extra time in there and in Peds, same thing, we didn't have too many babies and kids over there, but I still Aced both modules, and thoroughly enjoyed the classes and clinicals. There is nothing about Nursing I don't love, with the exception of sick people. I don't really care for that part. But, what exactly do you think happens everyday? People take a test and move on to take their Boards. Both people who were and were not in the military do it and it's called CLEP, and they bypass certain courses due to life experience. If you don't condone that, too bad, it's been going on for years. You don't get to make those decisions, and therefore good people are able to get ahead in life and are able to achieve their goals and get a college degree. I say good for them. If you don't like it, that's just too bad, perhaps you should try starting a petition to lobby Congress to change the Law. Until then, deal with it.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Both people who were and were not in the military do it and it's called CLEP, and they bypass certain courses due to life experience. If you don't condone that, too bad, it's been going on for years. You don't get to make those decisions, and therefore good people are able to get ahead in life and are able to achieve their goals and get a college degree

*** Not only CLEP. The thousands of RNs today who went through Exelsior college got were they were by proving competence in tests.

Specializes in FMF CORPSMAN USN, TRUAMA, CCRN.
True that military nurses don't go through basic training like an E-1. I did. I enlisted at 18 and served my piddly little 3 years as planned. I used my GI Bill and college fund and became an RN. An I came back in after 14 years as an RN at the age of 42. Because I always dreamed of caring for our heroes. I'm not the only prior enlisted RN - there are many of us. I'm proud that I was an E-1 and know what it is. But I'm not going to discount the nurse next to me for not going through "real" basic training.

Everyone has a story. All roles are valuable. The fact remains that medics aren't nurses - despite the amazing care they give and the lives they save/impact. But the path is there if they want to become one, they just have to work for it. I did.

midinphx

Thank you for your service, in both capacities, when you were 18 and now. And I hope you realize that you are to be counted among the heroes. I don't know if you are in Afghanistan or not, but taking the chance that you are; In your capacity, you take these wounded Warriors and at very least stabilize them for the long trip to where more intensive care can be rendered, or render that care on the spot if your facility is capable. I've spoken to some of the injured in the Poly-Trauma Unit at my local VA, that have been evac‘ed and their stories of the units in country are nothing short of amazing.

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