I aM floored. I just received notice from GA Board of Nursing that they denied the endorsement of my MN RN license because I did not meet clinical practice requirements . When I called the board, they transferred me to a their Legal Nurse Consultant who stated that effective July 1, 2008 GA would no longer endorse RN license from Excelsior College students with no previous RN experience. She suggested that I go to my licensed state and work for a while then try again, but she could not give me a time frame.
Has anyone else experienced this. I thought we should at least have gotten some sort of notice/warning before this type of rule be adopted by the board. I am going to file a motion for reconsideration using an Attorney. Before I entered Excelsiors program I called GA Board to verify acceptance. I had been accepted to a traditional LPN to RN bridge program; I could have been almost finished their too. I am so sad right now. I have been crying for two days. I think I will need to see my doctor for Zoloft.
I have been an LPN for over 13 years doing Med/Surg for at least 10. I work on a hospital unit right now. THIS IS SO UNFAIR!!!:banghead:
Well it passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!01/27/2009Senate Read and Referred02/05/2009Senate Committee Favorably Reported 02/06/2009Senate Read Second Time02/12/2009Senate Third Read02/12/2009Senate Passed/Adopted
And as an update on the rule waiver petition.....
I called today and was told that my petition was posted on Georgia.net the secretary of state could not tell my why or what that meant but, evidently GA laws requires any petition be posted for 15 to 30 days before it can be reviewed by the board. My petition was posted on 1/21 and therefore the 30d will be up before the boards next meeting. I undertand that this means my petition has to be reviewed in the next meeting. After the review, the board will have 30-60 days to notify me in writing of their decision. So, the next meeting is 3/18....I am still in the holding pattern.
Are you a Excelsior graduates and are you waiting for to take your NCLEX-RN or are you planning to attend Excelsior. I am despirately waiting for the bill to be passed, because I want to attend Excelsior and I can't apply right now because I am in state of Georgia.
I did my CPNE on July 11-13th last year. Passed with flying colors. Signed up to take NCLEX and found out August 1st that the law had changed and I would not be able to endorse in. It took the wind out of my sails and really ruined what should have been a great time of my life. I kind of pouted a month or so and then went ahead and took my boards, again...passed with flying colors. I waited to see what was going to happen with the law change and then got tired of waiting and petitioned the boards for a rule waiver d/t completing school before the law changed. Still waiting.
ugh....another one that disappoints me.................SB 49: CON: Bill will not end shortage
By DEE KEETON
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Senate Bill 49 would set back the high nursing education standards we have fought so hard to achieve in Georgia. We should be elevating the standards of the nursing profession, not lowering them. In its present form, SB 49 actually says that applicants entering nursing programs can be a licensed practical nurse, military service corpsman or paramedic. While these students may have had significant health care experience, they have never had a registered nurse education course, but will qualify to be licensed as an RN.
Excelsior College School of Nursing, for example, offers a self-study module that is completed by students without meaningful clinical rotations of hands-on experience with real patients. These students do not receive the many hours of supervised nursing clinical experience required by other board-sanctioned traditional and nontraditional programs. Instead, they undergo 2 1/2 days of monitored clinical experience during which a checkoff list is used to assess nursing competency.
SB 49 will also limit and restrict the nursing board’s ability to regulate the current standards met by nursing education programs in Georgia. This bill will require extensive changes to the board’s rules on nursing education. Such changes will allow programs to enter Georgia that have never before met Georgia’s high nursing education standards. The bill eliminates critical standards in place for nursing education.
The background of SB 49 has to do with a recent change in the law. HB 1041, enacted in 2008, closed a loophole in the Nurse Practice Act by raising the education standards of RNs coming to Georgia from other states so that all Georgia licensed RNs meet similar and equivalent nursing education requirements. SB 49 will now change that standard and allow RNs who are applying for initial licensure or licensure by endorsement to be licensed as RNs in Georgia with lower educational standards.
The Georgia Nurses Association supports this bill. There are more than 110,000 RNs in Georgia, but less than 3 percent of them belong to GNA. GNA does not speak for the majority of nurses. GNA conducts the required 2 1/2-day clinical competency testing at a cost of $1,800 per student. This money provides the majority of GNA’s operating income.
SB 49 will not eliminate the nursing shortage we are in today. The solution is not to lower the standards of nursing, but to maintain and improve our existing educational standards through providing more faculty in nursing board-approved programs and more clinical sites for programs that already exist.
The Georgia Board of Nursing is not opposed to innovation and nontraditional programs. Georgia has hybrid programs for LPNs and paramedics, and generic master’s degree programs. But all these programs currently meet our high educational standards. We cannot compromise on competency and excellence in nursing education. There is too much at stake for the health and welfare of our Georgia citizens.
The Georgia Board of Nursing has been charged with protection of the public. When I speak to health care consumers throughout Georgia about how SB 49 will impact nursing they are absolutely appalled.
Let’s leave the responsibility of determining the standards of education to the Georgia Board of Nursing, not the legislators.
• Dee Keeton, a registered nurse, is president of the Georgia Board of Nursing.
Sounds like the same closed-minded way of thinking that Rep Sharon Cooper uses. Even the same wording Cooper used. Maybe Cooper's the BON's puppetmaster. Instead of just saying that EC is inferior, and that we should take your word for it, and that all of the healthcare consumers you spoke with are appalled, try giving us some supporting evidence, Ms. Keeton.
Don't have any? Well, I'll give you some: EC has a higher NCLEX pass rate than the Georgia average. EC has held NLN accreditation longer than most (>60%) of Georgia's two-year schools of nursing. EC has provided nurses to Georgia's citizens since its inception in the early 1970s. EC has over 1100 Georgians enrolled in its ASN degree program, and a couple thousand more completing their pre-nursing enrollment requirements. SB 49 won't help the nursing shortage? Is she for real?
Simply telling us that EC is inferior will no longer suffice. I think Georgia's healthcare consumers deserve more credit than Ms. Keeton has given them. This type of thinking is exactly why Georgia's legislators have had to take over where the Georgia BON has failed.
Small minded thinking like this is why georgia is last in the nation when it comes to education. Students would not have to take excelsior if ga had more programs for working students. Who has time to take classes all week and try to work? Other states have programs in the evenings some even have online programs. In general Georgia is so behind in education it is ridiculous. I am taking a masters in health adminstration and health informatics and with all of the major universities in atlanta there were none that had online programs! Dee Keaton can be mad all she want this law is going to pass!
Small minded thinking like this is why georgia is last in the nation when it comes to education. Students would not have to take excelsior if ga had more programs for working students. Who has time to take classes all week and try to work? Other states have programs in the evenings some even have online programs. In general Georgia is so behind in education it is ridiculous. I am taking a masters in health adminstration and health informatics and with all of the major universities in atlanta there were none that had online programs! Dee Keaton can be mad all she want this law is going to pass!
This is the key thing. None of us are "trying to get over" as Keeton and some of her followers believe. We only want an opportunity to further our education just as others have. Apparently she's never walked in the shoes of a person who absolutely has to work in order to live. Excelsior was a God send for me because I am one of those students that cannot afford to work part time or not work at all. Some people will always be closed minded regardless of how much we try to enlighten them.
Anyone else have any four letter words pop into their mind when they read that?
When I did my LPN clinical rotation, there was a third year BSN student from a Georgia four year college caring for a nearby patient. The BSN student stepped out of the ER room, waited for the two staff nurses to finish their conversation, and then quietly asked, "Um, this lady's oxygen saturation is 25%. What does that mean?". Standards? Where was her preceptor? She was skating through her clinicals, only observing, and OBVIOUSLY not learning a darn thing!
I also work with an RN who graduated from a Geargia ADN program. I stopped him from injecting Tigan into someone who's blood sugar was bottoming out...he had no idea that Tigan was an antiemetic. He thought it was a glucose product. If your not sure about the action of a drug, shouldn't you look it up? He would have injected him and waited for the drug to work. The man could have died if it weren't for an EC student.
I could go on and on. Here's my point...
LPNs who demonstrate the initiative to further thier knowledge through self-teaching and self-disciplne will make the BEST Registered Nurses. I would entrust my life with an Excelsior graduate.
I have worked as a RRT for almost eight years. I cant believe dee keeton has the nerve to belittle our healthcare experience like that! New grads from traditional programs have clinicals that consists of mostly observation! Even as a student in respiratory school the nursing students only did 2-4 hours of clinical and i had 8hrs 2 days a week. Working in a clinical position as I was doing excelsior helped me to aplly waht I was learning and put it to use in my patient care!
What Keeton fails to mention is that LPN's in the state of GA are required to complete at least 700 hours of clinicals under the supervision of a RN. RN's in the state of GA don't have a set number of hours to complete (at least I haven't been able to find it anywhere on the Board of Nursing website). It is thought to be in the 500 hours range under the supervision of a RN (the same RN that is with the LPN for 200 more hours!). The reason for more clinical hours is because they say that the LPN is more hands on and the RN is responsible for more paperwork. So teach us the paperwork and let us prove our skills.
I don't think that Keeton learned anything from Sharon Cooper's mistakes. Thinking that anyone could apply, pass tests online and be a nurse after one weekend is crazy. Let's not forget that Excelsior students still have to pass the NCLEX.
I am keeping my hopes up that the Governor and the Senators are smart enough to recognize that people will move to where work is available. If GA doesn't want me, other states will fight over me (not being conceeded, that is the reality). The hospitals from other states are willing to pay for moving expenses, reimbursement for education and incentive bonuses. I would rather live in Georgia, but I know that I can work in almost any other state.
If Keeton is really worried about patient safety, she should be putting her efforts towards mandating a maximum patient care load. The nursing shortage is here. Check out the local hospitals. One in the area that I checked had a page and a half of jobs available. That was just one hospital! Not homecare or dialysis clinics, or case management positions. The nursing shortage is here and is just going to get worse.
As a paramedic, I had hundreds of hours of precepted clinical time. Guess who/what my preceptors were? They were RNs, of course! Granted, I also had 6 months of a preceptorship with paramedics, but all my in-hospital clinical rotations were at the hands and tutelage of RNs. And because these RNs weren't medics, our clinicals were similar to what the nursing students had, because the RNs weren't really able to teach from a medic perspective, not being medics themselves. I had great clinicals -- very hands-on. We did spend a lot of time in the ER, but we also went up to med/surg and the ICU when the ER wasn't hoppin'. We also had to have a certain amount of time in psych and L&D, as well as a certain number of pediatric and geriatric patients. I don't feel like I skated by on anything ... I didn't even mention the four years of ER tech work, where I picked RN brains non-stop. Do I know it all? Heck no. Am I prepared? Just as prepared (if not more so) than a first-day new grad from an ADN program. I've helped orient them in the ER, so I know this.
. When I called the board, they transferred me to a their Legal Nurse Consultant who stated that effective July 1, 2008 GA would no longer endorse RN license from Excelsior College students with no previous RN experience. She suggested that I go to my licensed state and work for a while then try again, but she could not give me a time frame.
rjlchef
39 Posts
Well it passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!01/27/2009Senate Read and Referred02/05/2009Senate Committee Favorably Reported 02/06/2009Senate Read Second Time02/12/2009Senate Third Read02/12/2009Senate Passed/Adopted
And as an update on the rule waiver petition.....
I called today and was told that my petition was posted on Georgia.net the secretary of state could not tell my why or what that meant but, evidently GA laws requires any petition be posted for 15 to 30 days before it can be reviewed by the board. My petition was posted on 1/21 and therefore the 30d will be up before the boards next meeting. I undertand that this means my petition has to be reviewed in the next meeting. After the review, the board will have 30-60 days to notify me in writing of their decision. So, the next meeting is 3/18....I am still in the holding pattern.