Do nursing schools actually conciously REALIZE they are being ridiculous or is it a..

classicaldreams · Feb 6, 2004

Roland,

I don't think some of posters really read your post at all. To read 1000 pages in the first week is unrealistic and has nothing to do with it being difficult. Do I want a nurse who was educated in an atmosphere where the expectations were unrealistic and everyone compromised so that students could pass a test? No. Make the amount of time needed to learn realistic and teach students how to manage and budget their time.

And I don't think you need to have a "calling" to be a nurse. From working in a hospital, it seems to me that less and less of nursing is about a "calling" but more about efficiency, organization, and knowledge.

I'm in a poor program too and we as students (and taxpayers, as our tax dollars goes toward our education) are trying to get better clinical and instruction time. As older adults, with many of us already having degrees and years of work experience, we must still jump through hoops that aren't necessary and a waste of our time.

Classical Dreams

Peeps Mcarthur · Feb 6, 2004

Roland,

My God, I only wish the program I left last year would have had SOME science. I left because the medical aspect of the curriculum was just fluff. The other thing about it was the test questions, as in your case, were contrived from personal assumptions of the instructors, not the textbook.

During test reviews after the fact we would all go over the test questions to discuss why we missed them. None of the instructors would ever attend one of these sessions. The person conducting the session didn't have any connection to the curriculum, for obvious reasons. When questions would directly contradict lectures or the textbook I could catch them at it, but the proctor always moved very quickly saying they needed to get somewhere and had very limited time.

I believe this is the reason test questions at my former school didn't seem to be connected to the lecture or text material. If they put too much actual verbatim fact in the exams they could not have made up the magical "critical thinking" argument. Whenever they were cornered by actual facts straight from the textbook they would say "well, you just need to be a better critical thinker for that one" or the ever popular " in nursing you don't always have the answer handed to you "

How about if we just trained our medical personel that way? They could study A&P but have any organism in the kingdom animalia on the test. They could be taught to diagnose and treat anything on the spot with this magical new critical thinking skill. Who needs structure, right? As long as they are taught to projectile vomit at the sight of multiple-multiples about some obscure psych term, they will be great nurses, right?

Well, my GPA is on the rise again. I'm in Biology II preparing for a graduate level school in medicine. The volume of material on the exam this week is overwhelming, but unlike your wife's nursing instructors, mine want me to get my information from the text so I'm not worried at all. The questions will require critical thinking to get a correct answer, but none of it will be challenged because it will come from the texbook and will be actual scientific fact that is peer reviewed for years before its publication.

I will actualy enjoy studying all day for the exam. I know it will be on the exam. I know if I spend the time to learn it, I will be rewarded with a good and just grade.

Your wife should just skip nursing school start earning the credits needed for a degree specific to the graduate. In my case, once I realized what was really going on, it wasn't possible for me to believe in the value of such an education. Once you don't believe the "critical thinking" fairytale anymore you'll begin to see the curriculum for what it really is and resent the instructor staff there because they see it too.

manna, BSN, RN · Feb 6, 2004

Originally posted by Roland
have a good friend for instance that applied and was accepted to IU's school of Medicine with a BSN in Nursing with a 3.4 GPA, and 980 MCAT's).

I think you might be misinformed, if someone thought they scored a 980 on the MCAT they must have been a little confused! LOL

(Scores are usually more like 20-30 + a letter)

roxannekkb · Feb 6, 2004

My nursing (BSN) was one of the most highly ranked by NLN when I attended, and I thought much of it was ludicrous beyond comprehension. They trained nurses for a hypothetical world of healthcare that doesn't exist anywhere on this planet. Many of the students in my class got the impression that much of their day was going to be spent walking through the hallways with a clipboard, and discussing "daily goals" with their "clients." The first thing a nurse does on her shift, we were told, is to discuss what goals the client wants to work on for the day. Can you imagine being a patient, and having your nurse come in, and ask you which goals you want to work on for the day?

The amount of reading was absurd, but I quickly learned what to skip and what to concentrate on. We only seemed to be tested on classroom lectures and some of the textbook readings, so I skipped about two-thirds of the "required" readings. I mean, there's only so much you can do and I worked part time as well. I was on the dean's list.

Being a nurse is difficult, but nursing school--in my experience--did not really focus on the reality of actually working as a nurse. It would be one thing if school was difficult because they were trying to teach us to actually work as a nurse. But it seemed that it was full of nonsense and time wasting activity--activities that I never felt contributed to my knowledge or helped me in my job.

Ravenowl · Feb 6, 2004

Roland, I agree with you, but it seems that some of these schools can take our money and think that they have a license to kick us around! I think it has to do with the ( They are boss, we are low-life employee) attitude. Good luck and fight the good fight!

Agnus · Feb 6, 2004

Originally posted by Roland
If you tried that sort of thing in the private sector you would face being sued or possibly arrested for consumer fraud.
[/quote
This is the private sector.

Altra, BSN, RN · Feb 6, 2004

Originally posted by Roland
Students, pay good money to attend nursing school (or it is paid on their behalf by the government in some cases) and the LEAST they should be able to expect is a FAIR test. If you tried that sort of thing in the private sector you would face being sued or possibly arrested for consumer fraud. Grades matter, and if you give me an "unfair" test that causes me to get a "C" instead of a "B" or an "A" then you very well might impact my ability to attend graduate school, either in nursing or some other field (I have a good friend for instance that applied and was accepted to IU's school of Medicine with a BSN in Nursing with a 3.4 GPA, and 980 MCAT's). That in turn affects my ability to provide for my family. Will my son not be able to attend private school or have braces for instance because some instructor can't take the time to ensure that exam questions actually reflect material that was assigned? Is there ANY accountability, and if so what form does it take?

Unfair test that "causes" you to get a C ... affects your ability to provide for your family, etc. etc. etc. ...

Give me a break! :rolleyes:

You're paying tuition so you expect As??

The school is accountable if your son doesn't get to attend private school??

:chuckle

Just took a pharm test that included 500 pp of reading, if you were so inclined. I read 5 chapters in their entirety, and just the summaries of the remaining chapters, in addition to completing all my clinical assignments this week. I got a 91% on the test, a B. Who's accountable? ME!

Hope I'm never your patient - would I be "held accountable" if my health didn't improve exactly as you thought it should??!!

Roland · Feb 6, 2004

over material NOT presented in the TEXT or the NOTES is fair by ANY standard? My wife had 1400 SAT's and was an A+ student prior to nursing school. She is STILL a B+ student despite these obstacles. The point about the private sector was that in MOST businesses you are required to meed some MINIMUM standard of customer service. The fact that the implications for nursing school grades is so great SHOULD cause instructors to approach the issues with great, seriousness of purpose. Throughout most of my educational experience (and hers) instructors were VERY concerned about being fair on their tests. This doesn't seem to be a concern in nursing school and I just don't understand why.

Look, I have no problem with tough tests. I will probably keep my 3.8 GPA without regard to ANY test that they might throw at me. Then again I consider Harrison's Guide to Internal Medicine to be light bedtime reading, and I was a corpman/medic in the Navy for six years. However, that doesn't change the basic fact that tests should actually test material that was actually presented or assigned. In the case of the NCLEX, that is a test that is given after graduation at a point when the student has at least theoretically been exposed to most aspects of nursing practice. Furthermore, it is PASS/FAIL and your specific score doesn't intrinsically affect your ability to go to NP or CRNA school.

The point about the MCAT's is well taken. I called the individual in question and he indicated that his AVERAGE score was 9.8, which was roughly average for the school of medicine he attends. The point is that had he attended my wife's nursing school he probably could not have attained the grades required to get into medical school (or possibly nursing NP school either). That would be OKAY if he or she fell short in the context of a FAIR program. However, when NO ONE in the whole nursing class is scoring A's, that might be an indication of a problem. Especially, when you consider that the AVERAGE class GPA was 3.45 going into the program (which includes over thirty hours of prerequisites such as A&P and Microbiology).

The bottom line is that I don't feel many nursing schools are being completely upfront with students. Indeed, I think it probable that so long as their NCLEX pass rates are high, and a fair number of their students GRADUATE they don't care if they do so with C's or A's. Indeed, I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately depress student grades so that they have few options, BUT to stay in bedside nursing. To the extent that this occurs it is ethically bankrupt, and in my opinion amounts to a civil rights violation for the students so affected IF it is predicated upon intrinsically unfair testing protocols.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 6, 2004

In my LPN program, we get tested on everything. Just because it wasn't in the lecture or that it's not in the notes doesn't mean it won't be covered on the test. We're expected to study and learn from the notes, lecture, and book. All of that is where our tests are coming from.

Speculating · Feb 6, 2004

Those old ladies can be brutal. During the last day of my first semester a few of us still had to do nothing more than do physicals on another student and we were done. That was all we had to do. We brought all kinds of food in (I can tell where a few of these instructors got a little on the heavy side since they had us bring food in for every milestone, and we weren't the only class.) it was simply a cake day do the physicals eat and leave - done next level. So we teamed up. I told the other student do her H&P on me first. The instructor abruptly stopped me, and told me to go ahead and do my H&P on the other student first. I did my H&P quickly and got ready to let the other student start hers on me when the instructor dismissed me from the area. She made that other student come all the way in feeling happy thinking it was over when she failed her on the spot. I felt so sorry for her although I knew she was struggling, but to make her come all the way in so I could do my H&P on her that was just out right MEAN! From then on I knew, I had to watch out for some of those witch's. I'm a guy, and they were very good to me. I missed close to a whole semester here and there and they told us they would fail us if we missed more than a day. I was having trouble with kidney stones. I thought for sure a couple of times the only way I was going to pass was to sleep with a couple of those instructors. THANK GOD I made it through without having to drop my draws.

RNPATL, DNP, RN · Feb 6, 2004

Roland - you have any excellent point, but consider for a moment where nursing schools and nurses "training" has come from. I remember when my mother went to school in the 70's .... the focus then was to strip any confidence the individual had and then rebuild the person into a nurse. The problem was, they never truly rebuilt the person. When the student graduated, they had little to no self-confidence and were afraid of their own shadow in many cases. Trust me, my mother was dearly afraid of her nursing instructor and that fear followed her into practice. She feared that experienced nurses would "report" back to her former nursing instructor if she did not know how to perform a procedure or something like that.

Fast forward to today, most nursing education is completed at the college level. While a great many things have changed about how nurses are educated, the fact still remains that instructors hold the future of the student in the palm of their hand and truly can make or break a student's success. It is my hope that things have changed and nurses are graduating with a reasonably decent ability to be safe at the bedside.

My experience in nursing school was very tough. I went into the program with a 4.0 GPA and graduated with a 3.25. Reason? Much of what you said, information that was placed on a test that I had not covered in my reading. There is simply to much information that needs to be learned and if an instructor wants to be mean, they can test on any of the information that is included in the course description. Is it right for them to do that? No! But, do you still need to know the information? Yes! Therefore, all material is fair game for the instructor to use. Do I agree with that and does that type of policy have the ability to impact a student's future .... no to the first and yes to the second. I certainly do not think that instructors use tests to hold a person at the bedside because their grades are to bad to get into graduate school. If that is happening at our community colleges and unversities, then there is something very wrong with our educational system. Perhaps I live life looking through rose color glasses, because I can not believe that our academic system would promote that much dishonesty .... at least not in this day and age, when education and advanced degrees are so important.

Just my humble opinion.

dphrn · Feb 6, 2004

Originally posted by Speculating
Those old ladies can be brutal.

I thought for sure a couple of times the only way I was going to pass was to sleep with a couple of those instructors. THANK GOD I made it through without having to drop my draws.

My worst instructor in nursing school was a man. I am sure none of your "old lady" instructors had any desire to sleep with you. You are really speculating. What a messed up post.