'Dumbing Down of Healthcare'

[rhiannonwolf]

Hello all,

Is it just me or does there seem to be a 'dumbing down' of healthcare that seems to be taking place in nursing and allied health schools across the country? I am taking my pre-reqs at a local community college before I start my BSN in May and I am shocked as to how many people in my Anatomy class are failing! The scary part is they are all pre-nursing! This concerns me because when I grow older, I would like to know that I am recieving the best healthcare possible from people who can handle the mental rigors of modern medicine!

Perhaps I sound snooty, but it seems like more and more of these schools churn out nursing graduates who should have never considered the field in the first place!

Thoughts or comments?

Rhiannon

[louloubell1]

The words 'dumbing down' may be the wrong choice for this thread. And I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but perhaps I will when I tell you this story. Where I live there is a commercial for a technical college with a nursing program. The girl that enrolled in the school is giving her testimony on TV about how she was sitting at her regular job one day looking through the employment ads when she came across this college's advertisement. I will quote her when she says, 'I was tired of doing the same old thing, and then I saw nursing, and I thought, hmm, I'll give it a try.' Obviously she enrolled in the school's program but what she said at the end of the commercial really scared me. She said 'Anyone can do this job, anyone!' To me, I do not agree with this statement at all! Not just anyone can become a nurse! It is one of the most mentally challenging career fields out there!

It just scares me when schools like that advertise that anyone off the street can become a healthcare worker.

My .02

Rhiannon

Oh, I know that commercial. That just irks me everytime I see it! :angryfire

[luv2yoga]

I had this same reaction in my Chem class. I've never heard so much complaining that the prof expects them to STUDY and actually READ the chapters. They truly want everything handed to them, and that's been a shock to me. Plus I notice that so many of them smoke and I tend to correlate that with intelligence (yes, I'm asking to be flamed). Then I realized that this is a pre-requ. and that only 50% of the applicants are accepted into the clinical program. And those that outright fail this class won't even fill out an application. I realized that probably only a fraction of us in that classroom will make it in. Then I felt better.

[mstewart]

is how everyone would ask "will that be on the test?" My thought was-what difference does it make-you have to know it anyway. If I were an instructor that would be my answer. However, my instructor was pretty patient. She would let us know which charts we would be tested on (some of the charts in the book she would never even refer to in class). But she would never tell us which items in the chart we would be tested on (obviously). I was just suprized that people would ask such a dumb question. Come on-would she really tell us what would be on the test?? Some people would constantly whine about different things, too. I couldn't believe how immature some people were-and nearly all were older than 25!!

[zambezi, BSN, RN]

I don't understand why people say this. Anecdotes and hearsay aside, what do grades have to do with "communication skills"?

(RE: A, B, C students & communication skills...)

I totally agree dianacs...I think that this is a bunch of crap, excuses for those with lower grades...Yes, I'll probably get flamed for that

I think that some people have busy lives, kids, family, the need to work, etc. and just don't have time to put in the studying at home... Some people can't/don't know how to study, bomb tests but "get" the material...all may earn a C grades. What I am trying to say is that there are lots of reasons people get C grades--but it drives me crazy when those that earn all As (because of whatever reason: no kids, financial support, hard work, innate ability to test and learn material, etc) get pegged for not having communication skills. I know plenty of C (and A, B) students that have the personality of a doorknob, 0 people skills. You can be a great nurse whether you get straight As or all Cs...all I want is a competent nurse who knows their stuff and is at the very least, pleasent to interact with!

Quote (meredith T):

... I've never heard so much complaining that the prof expects them to STUDY and actually READ the chapters. They truly want everything handed to them, and that's been a shock to me...

Quote (SmilingBluEyes):

...I think we are all being "dumbed down" to some degree along the way-

Maybe the OP IS onto something---- after some thought, I do wonder...

I was also surprised at the amount of people complaining about the work. I do feel that there is a sort of "dumbing down" that occurs in high school and college... I think that people have become too accustomed to having things handed to them--like spellcheck!! (which is one of my favorite things, but how will you learn grammer and spelling if a computer does it for you? Likewise, how will you learn if you don't have to read and look things up to make connections??) If everything is handed to you, how can you be expected to learn? We all want the "quick way" to the end, myself included, but I do think that in the long run it may cost us...JMO!!