Failed NCLEX 5 Times! Am I The Only One Who . . .

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Am I the only one who is concerned about someone who has failed multiple times, finally passes and then wants to share their experience with everyone else? Am I the only one who is concerned about working with nurses who finally pass on their eighth try? Granted, I'm so experienced that I took my licensing exam on paper eons ago when it was offered only twice a year, everyone answered all the questions over a two day period and it took six weeks to get the results. In those days, you only got two tries. That was it. So I could be someone biased and/or out of touch. I just wonder, though, about the knowledge base and learning capacity of a nurse that took the exam eight times to pass. Although perserverence is a virtue, and those folks obviously have plenty of that. Is nursing so different now that it's OK to take eight tries to get your license? Or is this a development of the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality? Keep trying and everyone gets a license?

Specializes in Trauma, Emergency.

gha why do i always seem to agree with grntea and rubyvee? and i'm just a baby- still in school! i guess i'm just "old fashioned." ;)

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
gha why do i always seem to agree with grntea and rubyvee? and i'm just a baby- still in school! i guess i'm just "old fashioned." ;)

Good values and clear thinking are not "old fashioned." They show good judgment that will help make you a great nurse. Welcome to the profession.

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Specializes in Trauma, Emergency.

thanks!! honored to soon join the ranks officially by way of the dreaded NCLEX, haha! and let me add Leslie to the list of experienced folks who usually take the words right outta my mouth. :specs:

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Specializes in Med Surg.

GrnTea, that's the best post I've read on here in a long time. I've never understood the excuses for test anxiety in nursing school. If you can't handle taking a test, how on earth can you handle all the stress that goes into nursing, where getting something wrong can result in the death of another human being, not just a few missed points on a test.

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Specializes in Trauma, Emergency.

Ooh and you know what else? People in nursing school that get to take their tests under special conditions for various learning disabilities...like they get 1.5 hr when the rest of us get 50 min...They get to take the exam separate from the class because the other people in the room "distract" them...guess what? I have a big ol' fat ADD dx too, from when I was a junior in HS. And a documented learning disability. And a case of discalcula (like dyslexia, only with numbers). But guess what? I make no excuses for myself, and when I do less well than I wanted to, it's because I didn't prepare like I should have. Not because I have x, y and z conditions that made me do badly waahhhhhh:bluecry1:!! I get pretty decent grades if I say so myself, and you bet your butt that I do not consider retaking NCLEX to be an option. I WILL pass it the first time. I could get 100s on all my class exams if I got to retake those too. But that's not real life. Tough cookies, cookie.

Haha! Okay that really is it for me now. Man I really sound like a curmudgeon these days... lol

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Specializes in Med Tele, Gen Surgical.

Well stated to all who mention test anxiety as an illegitimate excuse for not making it on at LEAST the second try... Here's my two cents (flame me if you want):

You may not make the perfect clinical decison on the first try (but hopefully you made a reasonable one), but boy oh BOY you'd better get it on the second, IF you get the chance.

Case in point...I had pt w/ declining Sats and increasing O2 demands at O'dark:thirty my last shift...running 6L NC to maintain >90%, 4L standard per home, and 13 hours post op w/ Hx of emphysema. No s/S of distress, A/Ox4, VSS, cap refill

Check with my (new) charge who stated, "well, she just needs a little more time on the O2, keep an eye and watch."

Now, this is a 23 hour observation pt w/ an implantable pain pump revision. Something is not right! I waited a little bit,but then just couldn't "not" do anything any longer.

I decide to call respiratory therapy for a second opinion....voila! At this point pt is now 86% on NC @ 6L (still no s/s of distress, she must live "low"), time for venturi mask + nasal cannula = 58% FiO2 to keep sat >92%..... OH AM I SCARED! I'm thinking get ready for rapid response and/or xfer to critical care and intubation.

Contact on call MD for the practice, receive orders for ABGs, CXR, continuous pulse ox (I did that earlier as soon as she wasn't satting in the first place). Call MD back,and at this point the pt is better stabilized at 91% on the NC and Venturi, resting comfortably, pain controlled, CXR show atelectasis likely secondary to anesthesia, and PCO2 elevated but pH stable/corrected at 7.4......and now shift change happens and I report off, letting day staff know the course of the night and that they MUST contact the admitting MD to see about discharge. No way this lovely lady is going home when she desats to hi 70s low 80s just to take the mask off for 60 seconds to take a pill....

I had 5 other patients that night with elevated acuity as well (more stable certainly, but needing frequent monitoring)....And I've only been at this job since October 2011, graduated in August, NCLEX'd in September........

Now, back to the point of this thread. NCLEX tests critical thinking essentially in "single" mode.....if a test taker cannot demonstrate reasonable critical thinking skills in "single" pt mode or "single" action mode, how will that new nurse interpret conflicting advice and data on a "single" pt? I'm all for at least one re-test, but the "15th" go around makes me wonder how fast that new graduate of a nursing program can incorporate new learning to make better decisions NOW. As in right after having experienced something new.

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Specializes in LTC, peds, rehab, psych.

Ok, I will tell you a story. When I was a junior in High School, I had trigonometry. Advanced math has never been my strong suit, and at the time I didn't take it too seriously. I went into class one day to take my final. I was the first one done because I didn't even read the questions. I just randomly filled in circles. I got a B on it.

So maybe if it takes someone 5 or 6 times to pass the NCLEX, that 6th time didn't mean they really learned anything more or got better at taking tests. They probably just clicked the right circles that time.... I'm just saying.

On a side note, my trig teacher was no dummy, knew what had happened and I heard the next year he had his students doing probability equations to find the odds of what I did working. haha

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Specializes in OB (with a history of cardiac).

It wasn't so much a problem when I was in school for my RN, but when I was in school for my LPN, we had a rather moderate sized crop of students who spoke very little English. I realize I'm getting in deep when I start going in this particular direction, but I later precepted students from that program when I was an LPN in a peds clinic and I heard some really disturbing things about the politically correct politics that surrounded that program. I realized it when I was in the program, but I had no clue how bad it was until I had preceptees telling me about how the whole back row of students who didn't speak English were found, half way through the term to be cheating on every exam- only they said they were "helping" each other because "that's how our culture is...we share and help". So those 8-10 students who understood hardly a thing they were being taught, had to take their exams separate from each other, and guess who failed? Guess who then marched themselves to the dean of the program and raised holy heck about cultural insensitivity?

It's not like they were doing so hot in actual practice either- I had one gal in my clinical group who failed VITAL SIGNS 3 times, and got to try again...3 more times until she "got it". This was in clinical now...on a real person...after 3 months of opportunity to practice! The rest of us? If we failed vitals, we might have gotten one more try to get that BP right- get that pulse right. MAYBE. But why? If you can't take a pulse, then I don't know what to say to that. Students would nod their heads and say "uh huh!" To every "do you understand what you're supposed to do now? Does this make sense? Can you do this?"

"Uh huh!"

"Fligga boo boo da da didda doo?"

"Uh huh!"

But I'm sure they're super nice and caring, and it's their passion, their dreeeaaammm and that's all that matters.

I test out students in that program now on their skills, and you know, sometimes I'm really nervous to fail someone because I don't want to get the big "intolerant, insensitive person" label slapped on my face. I've heard about students arguing, full on shouting at instructors about being failed, because they broke sterile technique, and not just a little bloop- I'm talking about a hard core biff-up, and they would sit there and argue about how they "did not!" and it's just not a cute thing I'm really ready to endure!

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Because real life situations are different from testing situations.

I do just fine on tests, but my sister, who is smarter, has always been a better student, and has a stronger work ethic than I do to boot, does poorly on tests. She graduated with a much higher GPA than I did (high school AND college) and at 22 was working in a position of greater responsibility than I will likely ever see as a fresh college grad.

But she did poorly on the SATs and other standardized tests and I do great on them.

I admit to being a touch skeptical about people who claim to be poor test takers, but then I think about my brilliant little sister who handles stress and emergencies in the real world calmly and steadily and give them the benefit of a doubt to a certain extent.

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You can go on and on and on about your view on nclex attempts and how YOU think it should be, but lets face it, your never gunna change it!! You don't write the tests and you don't make the rules. Having an opinion is great, but to batter this topic is so unnecessary. Let it go, why rant rant rant on things you cannot change. You will ALLLL continue to work with nurses who failed 2, 3 ,4, ,5 or 6 times, and there's nothing you can do about it. That is the way it is and its not changing anytime soon.

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this must be the lamest post I have read in months. I wonder why do I even bother with this website that turned into comedy and a bad one too!

took the words out of my mouth!:uhoh3:

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Well, it's not often that GrnTea and I come down so squarely on the same side of a topic. She is one of those crusty old veterans who's seen a lot of this profession and I'm a cynical old male who's been around the block in other fields but is new to nursing. I think our common regard for the topic at hand, coming from such disparate histories, demonstrates how serious this subject is.

Dreams are just that. A creation of the imagination. Rarely are they analogous to life, and sometimes the best thing to happen for one and all is to let those dreams go.

If I were in charge of reality the NCLEX would go back to being a very long test spread out over days. Clinicals would be tougher and school curriculum would be more focused to real world issues. You'd get two shots at the boards and those two would have to be spaced by six months. After that, remediation and a two year wait. Harsh? No, I'd call it demanding. This is after all a demanding business and as leslie :-D said, we should demand the "cream of the crop".

Physicians are known as primary care providers, the truth is that we are the primary (first) care providers at the bedside. We have to be better than average.

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