Nursing school, setting you up for failure???

[kstec]

I have a question to all nursing students....My brother is 22 years old and just transferred to a university after finishing his pre-reqs at a community college for financial reasons. Well to make a somewhat long story short, he is a very bright kid who left the community college with a 3.75 GPA and transferred to the university. He went there for his first semester just to establish himself there prior to getting into the nursing program. Well here comes that bad part, he is getting dropped his very first semester of nursing school. This particular college changed it's GPA average from 2.5 to 2.75, we'll he's getting a 2.71 and is out. He has busted his butt and now after going to college for three years to be a nurse, it's over. Why in the heck is it that if there is such a nursing shortage they make it so difficult for people to succeed? I'm not saying let less than average people through but why not help the intelligent, hard working people who really want to be a nurse? I guess it bugs me to that people are not passing nursing school because of the HESI. If someone proves that they are intelligent and competent but having a little difficulty, especially since the whole critical thinking thing takes practice, why not allow them to get help. My brother is devastated, especially because he has begged for help repeatedly with no success. Well the nursing field probably just lost someone who would of contributed alot to the field.

[msdobson]

Reasoning: The school gets to keep their high pass rate. They really want to graduate only the cream of the crop (as bad as that sounds).

This goes back to my earlier response, Jess. Schools rely on high pass rates for funding money. he lower the pass ratio, the less money available from the Federal Govt.

Mike

[msdobson]

Research supports that the "upper level" nursing degrees results in reduced patient mortality. I'm sure that the degree and associates prepared nurse is just as effective but that's what the research shows.

In many of my posts, I have said that each person is in control of his or her own destiny. Nothing or nobody can determine our individual successes more that ourselves.

While not debating your point, there should be many nursing pathways available to students. The healthcare ladder, so-to-speak.

More often than not, those same nurses who struggle to obtain those "upper level" degrees don't want to work the graveyard shift in a LTC facility, whilst many CNA's and LPN/LVN's thrive in this environment.

Also, if you have ever been in the research field, you will know that research, in and of itself, is skewed, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to prove the researcher's theory.

Also, in order for the research to be validated, it must be able to be duplicated by another.

Mike

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

thanks for everyone's input. . .he is doing excellent in clinicals and thoroughly enjoys working with his patients, but is having a hard time with the whole critical thinking concept (testing). i too had a hard time adapting the the concept and i think most students do. . .i still don't think one semester is an appropriate amount of time to give someone time to get the hang of critical thinking. the main part he has trouble with is the testing. he eliminates the two obviously wrong ones and then somehow picks the wrong one out of the two left. he's asked for help and explanations repeatedly to no avail. oh well, he will move on and either apply somewhere else or switch majors, but how sad, he really wanted to be a nurse and i think he would of been a good one.

this subject of critical thinking comes up a lot on the student forums and i have responded to a lot of questions about it. last summer i started working on just that in relation to writing care plans and a link to a form i developed is now attached to my signature so all can download and use it. in developing it i tried to put in writing how to put the pieces of how to think critically together. but, it has to be done over and over with many different examples. in nursing school you have to know and understand the nursing process. in making a decision about which of the two responses to a question are correct, it sometimes comes down to where in the nursing process the question has taken you. if you don't have a good foundation of what the nursing process is to begin with, you're doomed to getting the right answer 50% of the time.

your brother should look for another school, try to get into an lpn school and go that route, or even go into a completely different, but related profession. i have a cousin who is a pa working in an er and she loves to get together and talk shop. she gets to do a lot more procedures that we nurses can't. another possibility is to become a surgical assistant. with the nursing shortage, some hospitals have put sas in place of the scrub nurses in the ors. since my back went bad i've been taking classes in health information management (used to be called medical records) which is expanding dramatically because of computers and the coming of the electronic health record. the amount of anatomy and pathophysiology and knowledge of the medical procedures you have to know for this career is astounding. it's very challenging when you add all the medicare and state laws and insurance regulations to it. you get to read thousands and thousands of charts and see how care was given.

these are all possibilities your brother should consider. no education is ever a waste or a loss. as an sa, lpn or pa and some work experience he can later back door his way into nursing if he still wants to--and probably with tuition assistance from an employer as well!