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:
I agree and emailed everyone individually. But, if you put in the message title "SB 49" or something related to SB 49, it should not be treated as spam.
Interestingly enough, another group email address has been added this weekend, as of yesterday afternoon, in fact. Could it be that Gina McKinney was getting tired of being inundated with emails so much that they added another one?
Let me get it and post it...hold on...brb...
EDIT: Shoot, the second one has been taken down. Odd......
It was for someone like, point of contact or communications contact or something like that. It was just below Gina McKinney's webmaster information, and it was there yesterday afternoon.
Hmmmm....let me keep looking...that doesn't seem right that it would be there, then gone today...
He is the one who wrote to the AJC in support of Excelsior nurses, and he backs us 100%. Write him and tell him what the House has done with his bill and thank him for standing up for all of us.
By the way, he is a Dentist in Gainesville, GA. If you are there and need a dentist....
I sent a letter to the AJC in response to Keeton's. It's a lot longer than they say they usually publish, but it's hard to get all of the information out to people in 150 words when they've already been steered wrong by someone else. Anyway, I'm posting my letter here in case it's never published:
To AJC:
I am a lifelong resident of Georgia, and served 17 years as a Paramedic/Firefighter before beginning my career as an emergency/trauma nurse. I also worked for two years with a highly-regarded, Atlanta-area helicopter EMS program.
I am writing because of my concern for graduates of the Excelsior College School of Nursing. This program, based in Albany, New York, has allowed Georgians to study nursing through their innovative distance program since the early 1970s. Students study nursing theory at their own pace, are tested locally in their home areas at monitored testing centers, and complete their clinical examination requirements at Atlanta-area hospitals. The Atlanta hospitals involved in the clinical performance examinations are Grady Memorial Hospital, Gwinnett Medical Center, and Southern Regional Medical Center. Students complete an intense 2 1/2 day competency-based clinical exam, and must show near-perfect clinical skills and critical thinking abilities in order to successfully pass the exam. This exam must be completed in order to graduate from the program; it has never been considered a shortcut method to obtaining the RN licensure, and has always been a well-respected program of study by those truly familiar with the program.
The program is open only to those having significant clinical experience, and includes LPNs, Paramedics, and military combat corpsmen. Those without appropriate clinical experience are not eligible for admission. As a result of these high standards, graduates of the Excelsior program have consistently achieved a higher pass rate on the RN board licensing exam than both the national average and the average of graduates of Georgia-based traditional schools of nursing. The program allows those who work 24 hour shifts in the EMS field, or those serving their country in their respective deployed military units, to complete their nursing studies, which might not have been possible via the traditional, less flexible campus-based route. Excelsior College estimates that there are currently 36,000 Excelsior-prepared RNs practicing throughout the United States, and also protecting the health of our nation's fighting forces at military bases and in combat zones throughout the world.
During the last legislative session, Rep. Sharon Cooper's HB 1041 was passed, which now appears to have been a veiled attempt to exclude future Excelsior College graduates from RN licensure in Georgia. She stated on Atlanta's Fox 5 news that Excelsior has long been "a loophole that needed to be closed", and, in a statement which further showed her lack of familiarity with the program, she told a reporter that a student could become an RN through Excelsior without any clinical experience, and needed only a high school diploma to be accepted. When her flawed information was challenged by a reporter, she stated: “That still doesn’t change my opinion”. I am aware that she is a nurse, but I am sorely disappointed in her lack of reference to factual information to support her argument in this current age of evidence-based practice.
This legislatively-created crisis has left 1,100 Georgians who are currently enrolled in the Excelsior program without eligibility for RN licensure. According to the Excelsior College office of admissions, there are another 2,000 Georgians who are completing their pre-enrollment core courses. This has left over 3,000 Georgia families in an unimaginable crisis. For Dee Keeton of the Georgia BON to state publicly in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the future exclusion of Excelsior RNs will have no effect on Georgia's nursing shortage is simply ludicrous. These students were studying nursing through an award-winning, NLN and regionally accredited program that has been accepted in Georgia for over 30 years only to now be told that the program is somehow suddenly inadequate. Excelsior’s awards include being twice named a Center of Academic Excellence by the NLN, an honor never bestowed upon a Georgia-based college of nursing.
Rep. Cooper's reasons for targeting the program and the Georgians completing it have absolutely no scientific basis. To the contrary, the program boasts its longevity and awards for academic excellence, as well as its consistently superior test scores. Governor Perdue has voiced his full support of programs such as Excelsior College, making his disagreement with Rep. Cooper and the Georgia Board of Nursing public through a November 2008 press release.
Senator Lee Hawkins is the sponsor of SB 49, a bill to reinstate eligibility for Excelsior RN graduates, which was overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last week. It is now in the House HHS Committee of which Rep. Cooper is the Chair. In what appears to be an attempt to create further problems for Georgia's Excelsior students, Rep. Cooper has sponsored HB 475, which appears to have the sole purpose of negating any potential gains of SB 49. I find it difficult to believe that Rep. Cooper fully comprehends the potential negative impact these irresponsible legislative actions could have on the thousands of honest, hard-working Georgians and their innocent families who stand in the wake of this tidal wave of disastrous legislation. For a trusted Legislator or Board member to publicly state that they are simply trying to protect the public is nothing more than fear mongering and is without a single ounce of merit
I am an Excelsior graduate, and currently work as an emergency/trauma nurse and paramedic at a busy Georgia trauma center. The opportunities afforded me by my Excelsior education have been very much appreciated. These opportunities would not have been possible without the privilege to study nursing through Excelsior College. Georgia-based schools of nursing, although excellent, simply don’t offer this type of flexibility for non-traditional students.
I know of many Georgia LPNs and paramedics whose lives currently hang in the balance because of this unjust legislation. They have student loans that are due, mortgages, child care issues, and many other stressors that many Georgians are now facing. Some are waiting for a solution. I personally know another who has left the state to practice in Alabama. Others are also contemplating moving out of Georgia. They deserve better than this from our elected officials and board members! What have they been given? Lies about them on local news media outlets by formerly trusted members of the state political establishment.
I apologize for the lengthy correspondence, but it seems to be such a complex situation that I am afraid I will create further misunderstanding by not seeking to establish complete clarity. I have sent e-mails, faxes, and letters to many members of the House and Senate, and I sincerely hope that many others do as well. I am only seeking support and fairness for these hard-working Georgia citizens. From our perspective, it appears that a game of legislative chess is being played, while thousands of innocent Georgians are being treated as pawns.
Oh my God, that is BRILLIANT!!!!! It is so well-written and very clear and passionate!!!! Well done!!!!!!
EVERYBODY!!! Let us ALL write to the AJC!!! Let us contact 11 Alive, Fox News, whoever that will listen (and the ones who won't, at first) to get this story heard!!!
I am so proud of everyone on here and am humbled to be among your numbers. I hope, one day, we can all actually work together in our professional capacity! What a team we would all make!
I have no doubt that Mrs Coopers bill will fail. SB 49 will be passed and be signed by the governor! Even if hb 475 passes Sonny Purdue will veto it!
If Purdue veto's, it will be another long, drawn out year before we get back to the general assembly. I spoke with one of the senators who told me that it is not at all uncommon for someone to sneak a bill in to oppose another at the 7th hour. According to him the bill is exactly opposite of SB 49 so that the two will go to committee and since each bill is on opposite sides of the spectrum, they will hash it out and meet in the middle. Most likely, (according to this law maker) there will still be a backdoor entry with clinical hours required, but not 800 hrs. He believes HB 475 was written to force the compromise.
I am not sure how it is going to turn out and the senator was speaking off the record, so I am not a liberty to share contact info, but I thought it was good to know and maybe ya'll would be interested.
Has anyone thought about calling or contacting the ACLU? This is discrimination and that is what they deal with.
Well, by definition, it's not discrimination in the legal sense because EC graduates don't fit the definition of protected class. One thing that I have thought about is that Excelsior is known for providing educational opportunities to members of the African-American community, as well as other minority groups. They are members of a protected class.
Now, if I was a member of a protected class, and I felt that I was a victim of discrimination due to the actions of the Georgia political system, then I would have no problem whatsoever in taking appropriate legal action.
I have been working as a critical care nurse for 10 years. If they think they are going to make me do clinical hours, then they are smoking something funny.....
I refuse to be a pawn in their stupid little game!! They have made us all uncomfortable, now it's THEIR turn!
I want them both removed from their posts. They are a couple of bigots! I had hoped we were living in a different time, but its apparent discrimination is still alive and well in Georgia!
I have planned a full day off this week to do nothing but e-mail, call, and send out letters to legislators. Please, let us all do the same so we can change this situation for the better.
Here are some of the passing averages for Georgia schools, whom, I'm sure, adhere to Her Royal Highnass' rules for "high educational standards". Check out their NCLEX averages:
As you can see, Excelsior is right on par with the excellent scorers (funny, we did better than Dee Keeton's alma mater, Mercer University...hmmmm), and outshines many of the nursing schools with such "high educational standards".
Now, since there are low-scoring schools, then why is the board allowing their students to sit for the boards? For that matter, since Excelsior is such a crap school (in HRH's opinion), then every school that scores lower than EC should not be allowed to sit the boards, either! I'm just using a bit of logic here and I don't want that to happen to any school, but hard numbers don't lie. Excelsior has better scores than thirteen nursing schools, equal to one school, and on par with ten schools (those schools who scored 90% or better).
Whew! Do all of you see what Dunkin' Donuts coffee does to me? I'm thinking in terms of logic, ON A SUNDAY!!! lol:bugeyes:
I hope that it doesn't come down to some watered down compromise bill but if that's what it takes so be it. However I noticed that 475 excluded paramedics! I sometimes feel like I have two fights on my hands, to be included in the Excelsior group and to get Excelsior recognized. Arrrrgghhh! Good luck everybody. I will send another round of emails tomorrow.
. 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.
gobsmackednurse
86 Posts
I agree and emailed everyone individually. But, if you put in the message title "SB 49" or something related to SB 49, it should not be treated as spam.
Interestingly enough, another group email address has been added this weekend, as of yesterday afternoon, in fact. Could it be that Gina McKinney was getting tired of being inundated with emails so much that they added another one?
Let me get it and post it...hold on...brb...
EDIT: Shoot, the second one has been taken down. Odd......
It was for someone like, point of contact or communications contact or something like that. It was just below Gina McKinney's webmaster information, and it was there yesterday afternoon.
Hmmmm....let me keep looking...that doesn't seem right that it would be there, then gone today...