Cheating in nursing school?

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Ok, this is the first time I have posted anything. I have been reading tons of stuff on here for about a year but I had to get some feedback on this one. Recently it was brought to our class' attention that there is cheating going on in our nursing program! I am totally shocked at this. I am a mother of four young children ages 5-9 (twins are 5) and I spend numerous hours away from kids to study and learn to be the best nurse that I can be and some idiots are skating by. :madface: I am in my second semester and supposedly there are students in my class as well as semesters 3 and 4 who are doing this. The students in my class (like me) who work their butts off and a little ticked off to say the least. :banghead: I was wondering if anybody else out there has dealt with this in nursing school? Oh yeah, the story is that if the people with the tests (don't ask how they got them!) come forward then they can stay in the program. The ones who are caught and don't come forward will be dropped with an "F" and their nursing careers are over. They are only cheating themselves but many of us are ticked off! Any thoughts? Sorry to rant on my first post! On a better note, I love this site!!:nuke:

Specializes in cardiac, ortho, med surg, oncology.

Cheating is not unusual in nursing school. I suspect every class has a cheater or two. I think cheating reflects the cheaters lack of personal integrity and ethics and it a good indicator of their lack of future professional integrity and ethics. Those are the ones that make nurses look bad. Eventually their lack of integrity and ethics will catch up with them.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

u can cheat nursing school. but, u can not cheat nclex. i would not worry about what others are doing. be concerned about yourself!

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i saw cheating in my a&p class. our teacher was very nice and would review the tests with us, letting us each have a test to review in class that then was passed back in. i found out after the class had ended that one student was keeping the tests to review for the final. our teacher had already told us that many of the questions on the final came from the tests we had taken. i didn't say anything since the class had ended. i am not sure if i should have said anything. i would love your thoughts on that.

also, my classmates and i have discussed sharing an excel spreadsheet of meds with reason for taking the drugs, reactions and side effects, nursing implementation and pt teaching for our care plans. we have also discussed sharing nursing dx (without the r/t and evidence by) with interventions and rationales. the meds we already just copy and paste from our drug cd and the interventions and rationales we get from our care plan books. we have not done this yet because we are all unsure if this would be considered cheating. what are your thoughts? is this cheating or just wisely using resources?

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we had a big problem with cheating at my school last year. don't know how or any details but now the professors are really strict during test time. we can't even have water bottles on our desks and we all sign honor codes on the front of every test. doesn't bother me, i work hard for my grades and want everyone else to work too!

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Specializes in home care, med-surge, education.

:down:Cheating is just wrong. It scares me that people who will eventually be responsible for lives would cheat. It is not fair to those who bust their butt to make it through!

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Med-Surg.

its not cheating, its utilizing resources. When I was doing my initial RN licensce my study group broke up the amount of drugs we had to look up for the semester and each of us would do the drug card and then we would make copies for the other and we all had the info.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, , Home health, Education.

It won't pay off for them in the long run....they likely will not make it past the NCLEX. I work in staff development now and nurses are sent to me if they fail their NCLEX. That doesn't mean that all those who fail their NCLEX are cheaters but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them used alternate methods to get through school. Also, this is for xos4eva- there is a difference in splitting up the work load between students and "cheating". Those who don't cheat are better nurses and can do the critical thinking others cant.

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Specializes in ICU/ER.
its not cheating, its utilizing resources. When I was doing my initial RN licensce my study group broke up the amount of drugs we had to look up for the semester and each of us would do the drug card and then we would make copies for the other and we all had the info.

I dont look at your scenerio as cheating at all--my study group would would almost always break the study guide down and take a part then re-group a few days later and share what we learned and pass out copies. Ultimatly we had to learn all the material.

Nursing is just like any other profession, you will find cheaters---Iam sure just as much cheating goes on in med school. It would be wonderful to think all nurses were honest/kind and generally good but it is not true.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

My school, or at least the students in my semester, had a huge problem with cheating. There was this whole group of students who apparently had been cheating for a while, only none of us found out exactly how many people were involved until the final semester (there were 4 semesters). I was shocked at some of the people who were involved. My friends and I studied so hard and I was proud of my grades, even if they weren't all A's. I was wondering how so many of these students were getting A's on every test, I thought they just had a well formed study group. Well, I guess it sort of was a "study group." And I know how they did it too. Students from previous semesters would give them copies of old tests, and when some ppl in our class were held back, those that weren't would give them copies of our tests so they would be prepared. One girl in particular was really bad. She had been held back a semester, a lot of us didn't like her so we didn't mind that she wasn't with us anymore. Well, she would always invite herself into our classroom during breaks and usually stay, the teacher never noticed or didn't care. During one incident, she was there while we were reviewing a test and she actually used her phone to take pictures of the test so she had it for herself the next semester! I was furious, but no one was willing to turn her in with me and I didn't want to be "that person" that rats everyone out. In our final semester though, our psych teacher didn't use old test questions, so those of us that actually studied and knew the material did well. Those that relied on old exams from friends did well, and whaddya know, about 4-5 people failed and were held back a semester because of that! I fear for the patients that will one day have this people as their nurse (if they can even pass the NCLEX).

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Specializes in Interventional Radiology.

Okay, I understand your being upset and feeling -no pun intended- cheated; however, let me point this out to you. While I was in nursing school, there were a few people who cheated on tests, didn't get caught and went on to the next semester. They eventually graduated from nursing school and low and behold when it came time for NCLEX- they didn't pass- not once- but twice. I don't know at this point if they have tried to take it again, but the point here is that you know, just as I did, that you work really hard to learn as much as you can and be the best you can be- and end the end that will pay off. You will pass NCLEX and become a great nurse. Cheaters only cheat themselves....

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.

Cheating happens in every program not just nursing school. When I was in school one of the day classes (I was nights) caught about 10 people cheating. The reason they were caught was because they were texting each other the answers to the questions. The instructors knew something was going on because these people were squeaking by and suddenly were getting straight A's on everything. After that we had to empty our pockets before any tests. If we were caught having anything in our pockets other than pens/pencils it was an automatic zero. I know that several times during a test when I would go to sit down in the testing room formulas and drug names were written on my desk. I would raise my hand and let the instructor know. We would laugh because the stuff that whoever wrote on the desk was WRONG.

My friend went to another school and some were caught cheating. They got caught by writting the answers on their hands. So before every test the would have to empty pockets, wash hands then show instructor, and wash down their desks.

I wouldn't worry about it. In the long run they're going to get caught one way or another, whether it be in school, at the NCLEX, or on the job.

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I'm probably going to be the only one to say this but if a student has to cheat to make it through nursing school then they shouldn't be a nurse. If you have to cheat it makes me think that you are not competent.

I totally agree with this statement, since if a person cheats they won't have that piece of knowledge learned and they will be a dangerous nurse because of it.

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