We Must Demolish NP Diploma Mills

[cprimavera]

What is AANP doing with those programs??? I think we should unite to take an action on such diploma mills.

[Ace Savanahh]

On 2/3/2021 at 2:37 PM, cprimavera said:

What is AANP doing with those programs??? I think we should unite to take an action on such diploma mills.

Why not become an NP yourself?   A lot of RNs get their degrees in diploma mills.  Ever heard of Unitek?   Have you???

[Ace Savanahh]

On 2/5/2021 at 7:45 PM, Zyprexa_Ho said:

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would be interested in your definition of diploma mill schools. What criteria should we use? What are some example of diploma mill schools?

Sonoma State?  Sam Meritt?  

[TheMoonisMyLantern, ADN, LPN, RN]

17 minutes ago, Ace Savanahh said:

Why not become an NP yourself?   A lot of RNs get their degrees in diploma mills.  Ever heard of Unitek?   Have you???

Undergrad nursing education certainly has its problems as well when it comes to diploma mills. There's a for profit chain school in my area that charges $30,000 for their LPN program and $60,000 for their ADN program, they also have an RN-BSN program though I don't know what the cost is. The admission requirements are practically non-existent  and they entice people by advertising how few pre-reqs there are to take and how you can start your nursing courses immediately. That can be very seductive to people desperate to change their lives and to achieve their goals. It seems that a lot of NP schools are utilizing the same tactics.

[Zyprexa_Ho]

8 hours ago, Neuro Guy NP said:

Don't do an online program. As for those who worry about accessibility etc, why is this not a concern for other health professions, like PA, PharmD, MD, etc? Either you can make the necessary arrangements to study, or you can't. I don't mean this to sound elitist, but NP isn't for everyone and the answer ISN'T to lower the bar so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can apply. I have seen too many students start my program (I'm a professor) and either fail out or drop out because they cannot handle the time requirements of our full time program AND work full or part time +/- family commitment. 

There unfortunately are too many RNs who just think that NP is the next best thing and don't take the time to truly calculate the cost, including opportunity cost, time commitment needed, emotional/financial/physical burdens of school, and what they propose to do after school. And then come the sob stories. It's as if folks are building the house without drawing thorough blueprints and are surprised when the walls start crashing down midway through the project. Just the other day I had to really break it down to this FNP applicant who works Monday through Friday at doctors office that she won't be able to get through the program. We're a full time program and even if she goes to a part time program, when on earth does she think she's going to do primary care clinicals which are open during business hours only? This is the kind of total lack of introspection that I am talking about and the reason we denied her admission, because she's not ready for NP school for this reason.

NP absolutely needs to be like CRNA to increase quality, respect, and demand. Not everyone is cut out for every venture and just because you want to doesn't or at least shouldn't mean you're entitled to do it if you don't meet the standards or can't properly commit. Hell, I want to be a soccer player in one of the European leagues and make millions, but guess what? I don't qualify!

There is a huge difference between increasing the quality of the education and making sure that intelligent people make it into and out of these programs, but accessibility also has to do with the fact that many people have the requisite intelligence to be good NPs but not necessarily the financial ability to take that kind of time off, etc to do a program like you're talking about.

I mention this only to prove a point, but I am a former American Mensa member, but I would never become an NP if I had to take three years of time off and accumulate six figures of debt to do it... Only to make 80-100k/year. That would be financial suicide for me.

18 minutes ago, Ace Savanahh said:

Sonoma State?  Sam Meritt?  

I haven't heard of those. Maybe it's a good thing. I plan on going to a state school with a good regional reputation, but in order for it to be financially accessible I fear that I'm going to be taking a small risk in not working in the same region as I get my degree.

[Ace Savanahh]

1 hour ago, Zyprexa_Ho said:

There is a huge difference between increasing the quality of the education and making sure that intelligent people make it into and out of these programs, but accessibility also has to do with the fact that many people have the requisite intelligence to be good NPs but not necessarily the financial ability to take that kind of time off, etc to do a program like you're talking about.

I mention this only to prove a point, but I am a former American Mensa member, but I would never become an NP if I had to take three years of time off and accumulate six figures of debt to do it... Only to make 80-100k/year. That would be financial suicide for me.

I haven't heard of those. Maybe it's a good thing. I plan on going to a state school with a good regional reputation, but in order for it to be financially accessible I fear that I'm going to be taking a small risk in not working in the same region as I get my degree.

Sonoma State is CA state University.  I went to one as well. I think nursing is a simple degree if the teachers are good.  I had really good and really bad instructors in my BSN program where some of my community college instructors were wayyyyy better.  I got a BSN to go for my NP so I was looking at diploma mills.  I’m going to a state school though 

[TheMoonisMyLantern, ADN, LPN, RN]

I think there are exceptional students that go to every type of program and will become safe practitioners but I do feel that the bar needs to be raised higher.

Zyprex_ho (love your name) I agree that accessibility should be considered due to the fact that NP's make considerably less than CRNA's and MD's on average. Surely, there has to be a sweet spot where the bar is raised but isn't placed to high.

[Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP]

11 hours ago, Ace Savanahh said:

Sonoma State?  Sam Meritt?  

I'm somewhat familiar with those schools as a California resident.  Sonoma State is part of the Cal State U system. They offer just an FNP program which makes sense given that Sonoma County is considered rural. The program is highly web-based and they don't guarantee preceptors though they will assist in making calls. I think the issuse with web-based or online programs is that some students enrolled can be outside a geographical radius where the school has a network of preceptors.

Samuel Merritt started out as a Diploma Nursing school and grew into a private institution affiliated with Summit/Alta Bates Medical Center in Oakland, CA.  They have multiple campuses now and offer various health-related programs (RN, NP, PA, PT, Podiatry). I've heard better reviews of their PA program over the NP Program.  It is also quite expensive to attend there. It's not lumped in the "for-profit" category in the sense that those schools are defined as "corporation-owned" by a parent entity such as how Walden, Phoenix are structured. However, there are similarities in their recruiting and operational goals.

[Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP]

9 hours ago, Zyprexa_Ho said:

I plan on going to a state school with a good regional reputation, but in order for it to be financially accessible I fear that I'm going to be taking a small risk in not working in the same region as I get my degree.

I went to a state university.  It has a medical school (MD), a Pharm D program, degrees in rehabilitation sciences (PT, OT, SLP), CRNA, CNM, all NP tracks including NNP and PNP-AC, and believe it or not, PA as well. It is surrounded by a medical center campus including a stand-alone children's hospital. There is no difficulty finding preceptors and the school arranges them. 

Though not a lot of people have heard of it, it does figure well in the upper 25% of programs in the US News rankings not only in the nursing category but also in Medicine.  I stayed in the area after graduation and roughly 60% of physicians in the area trained there whether in their MD program or residency/fellowship.  That helped me get a network of healthcare professionals recognizing where I attended school.

After 5 years, I moved many miles across the opposite coast. I think it was my experience and skills that sold my employers to hire me, not necessarily my education anymore. 

[umbdude, MSN, APRN]

10 hours ago, Zyprexa_Ho said:

There is a huge difference between increasing the quality of the education and making sure that intelligent people make it into and out of these programs, but accessibility also has to do with the fact that many people have the requisite intelligence to be good NPs but not necessarily the financial ability to take that kind of time off, etc to do a program like you're talking about.

Intelligent people plan, make sacrifices, find scholarships, and do all the appropriate calculations to make things work in order to obtain the best education possible. Many of these folks do it for med, PA, PT, OT schools and all sorts of other full-time professional programs. The talk about accessibility and affordability is a cop-out common to many nurses who simply want to take an easy path. RNs want convenience, cheap tuition, ability to work full-time and complete education in 2 years, don't want to physically go in (at all) for on-campus skills, and then they complain about a sub-par education and don't feel ready.

I went to a 100% in-person reputable NP Program. People did fail out of classes because the exams were hard, and we were taught above what's required for the boards (which is the bare minimum). We were expected to role-play in therapy courses to demonstrate each modality's techniques; we had to take a full history with an actor (unknown person, without any information) and formulate differentials to pass our mid-term in Advanced Health Assessments; we had to demonstrate that we're actually percussing the liver span and we couldn't hide behind the camera because the professors stood right next to us; and we got tons of pearls from professors that weren't in the textbooks (real time back & forth dialogues and debates). Finally, I had my preceptor lined up 9 months before I even started clinical...didn't lift a finger. 

Was it a perfect program? No. But definitely worth my time, effort, and the $57k tuition. I had a great education that didn't break the bank. 

Maybe RNs don't realize this, but $100k+ salary a year is high by most standards. Many psychologists, MSW, psyD, MBA, OT etc. go back to grad school for much less earning potential. The only reason RNs think it's not good ROI is because many RNs already make near that amount. In that case, you must consider why you're going back to get your NP to begin with and what values you want to get from becoming an NP.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

On 2/5/2021 at 3:38 PM, JBMmom said:

paying professors a lot for very little substantive teaching. 

Most professors don't make huge amounts from teaching. The educational institutions collect large amounts

Most professors have a side gig or 2 if they are the breadwinner/financial person in their household

I agree, though, that paying students deserve better

[Ace Savanahh]

2 hours ago, juan de la cruz said:

I'm somewhat familiar with those schools as a California resident.  Sonoma State is part of the Cal State U system. They offer just an FNP program which makes sense given that Sonoma County is considered rural. The program is highly web-based and they don't guarantee preceptors though they will assist in making calls. I think the issuse with web-based or online programs is that some students enrolled can be outside a geographical radius where the school has a network of preceptors.

Samuel Merritt started out as a Diploma Nursing school and grew into a private institution affiliated with Summit/Alta Bates Medical Center in Oakland, CA.  They have multiple campuses now and offer various health-related programs (RN, NP, PA, PT, Podiatry). I've heard better reviews of their PA program over the NP Program.  It is also quite expensive to attend there. It's not lumped in the "for-profit" category in the sense that those schools are defined as "corporation-owned" by a parent entity such as how Walden, Phoenix are structured. However, there are similarities in their recruiting and operational goals.

This ☝?.thank you for the explanation.  Fresno state is a CA state university and lost its accreditation.  I have also met a nurse that went to Unitek and Dominican working at kaiser and someone who went to San Jose state working for the county so I don’t know how much of a difference it makes

[djmatte, ADN, MSN, RN, NP]

To classify *all* online programs as diploma mills is a tad over-reactive.  Especially when many brick and mortars are going to hybrid models or (thanks to covid) forced to fully embrace online education.  I graduated from Frontier Nursing University.  I chose them for sure because I could continue to work in some capacity while they also had in-person requirements as we progressed through the curriculum.  They are technically a non-profit organization, but were ahead of the curve requiring both in person circumstances, adding proctored online exams before most online schools even considered it, as well as set hard minimums in order to pass to include exam average minimums (even if your overall score met the requirements to pass).  What I liked about FNU was their history of nursing service and the changes they brought to their own community by training new generations of midwives and eventually NPs since the early to mid 1900s.  They do work hard to ensure they maintain a high board pass rate, but also push the student community to work interactively and collaboratively in ways from what I understand other online schools don't.  They set a high bar of in-person checks on ability to perform physical exams across the life-span where other schools just let you send in a video of you going through the motions.  This is before we are allowed to see a single patient through our clinical work. They also have stringent requirements to work with an FNP for most of your clinical rotation and it HAS to be in family medicine (besides the peds and WH rotations). They will only allow a small percentage for places outside those areas.

On that same note, they don't meet everyone's expectation of what separates the good from the bad.  They don't find a preceptor for you.  But they keep long records of places they have or are currently working with to allow students to reach out.  They have regional support staff that are required to evaluate the student in their clinical environments to make sure both the student and preceptor are upholding FNU standards.  These people are also instrumental in securing places to do clinicals in a pinch.  

Overall my experience was good and I generally felt well prepared for both my boards and as I eventually started to practice.