Are you volunteering to be the patient she trains on? Someone will be.
So? There are always going to be nursing students who make it to clinical practice and prove unable to be nurses. How about the nurse who washes out of clinical practice because she doesn’t pay attention to directions? Or she’s a drunk? Or she doesn’t show up on time, or she forgets everything she is supposed to know when faced with an actual patient. Are you volunteering to be her patient?
Update: everyone has to practice on someone. I’m a nursing student with a GPA very close to 4.0-guess what? That means nothing. I haven’t worked on anyone yet. I haven’t actually practiced in a simulation. While I hope and believe I’m good at it, grades mean nothing.
Yeah, and about that chemistry, you know many ADNs and RNs from diploma programs didn’t have to take it at all, right?
nycparent, please don’t extrapolate from my story about the teacher giving an exam on WWII with students questioning him in class. This teacher is a horrible example of teacher neglect. He never made individual exams for his classes and gave the regular class an AP test because he was literally too lazy to make another one. Based on this and other incidents, he was not fired (teachers’ union) but basically demoted to teaching low level social science classes. This extreme story was just to illustrate the disadvantage of taking an exam separately without access to what was going on in the testing room, and I apologize if it was misleading!!
Thanks for the clarification compmom. I’m still surprised about how many people have posted about asking questions during exams as though it was a regular occurrence!
It does seem to me that if anyone gets to ask a question during an exam, the question and answer should be provided to all the students. Of course, if that happens a lot during the exam, it would be distracting! And presumably a sign of a poorly written test or a poorly taught class.
As for that nursing student, if she was in a separate room and couldn’t ask questions while others were allowed to, then that would be bad, and even if the other students were not allowed to ask questions, it could be anxiety producing for her if she was told that she could, but in fact was not able to (not sure about a lawsuit however).
As to whether she would make a good nurse or not, I have no idea. I guess you could ask that about a lot of professions where the degree or license is a barrier to entry to the profession. I know folks who failed the bar exam multiple times and moved on, who could have been good lawyers, and plenty of bad lawyers who had no trouble passing the bar.
But there has to be some means to determine qualifications, even if they are imperfect.
I only saw questions actually being asked during exams a few times ever. It was really a rare exception, not a commonplace experience.
If she can’t calculate alone in a quiet room, she will be dangerous in health care settings. I think she’s preparing her lawyers for when she fails her practical.
Here is an update on the story- http://citizensvoice.com/news/misericordia-disputes-former-nursing-student-s-allegations-1.1939966
Thank you for the update. Lots of new pieces to the puzzle.
Part of the nursing program is to weed out people not capable of being a nurse.
If you can’t do math calculations in a distraction free environment, you are certainly not going to be able to do it in real-time stress environment.
Yes, if you can’t handle the stress of one test, you will not be able to handle the stress of being a nurse.
Aside from whether she is able to succeed in her education, the accomodations she is seeking are very unlikely to be available in the state licensing process. So even if she were to eventually complete the program, unless she is able to resolve her issues, she is unlikely to ever be able to actually practice nursing.
You all need to read the updated article. She did not even haev a documented disability.
The college says that she was allowed to ask questions of the proctor during the exam, and did, but the proctor refused to give her the answers to the exam questions. I’m in favor of accommodations for people with disabilities, but not the accommodation of giving them the answers to exam questions during the exam.
She does not have disabilities
"In contrast to Burbella’s insinuation that she was being treated at the campus Counseling and Psychological Service Center in March 2011 for issues including depression and anxiety, the response filed Friday said that Burbella, who had low grades, was “required to participate” in counseling because of an alcohol-related incident, “not because of any disability alleged in the complaint.”
and:
" Nursing professor Christina Tomkins told all students she would be available to answer questions during the exam, the answer said. Although Burbella said that she repeatedly called Tomkins and broke down in tears when the professor didn’t pick up, Misericordia’s response maintained that Burbella did speak to Tomkins repeatedly throughout the test, including one call that lasted about a half hour.
“Professor Tomkins never promised to ‘assist’ the plaintiff or to ‘discuss’ in a substantive way any answers to the plaintiff’s exam,” Oschal wrote. “However, notwithstanding the plaintiff’s efforts to elicit substantive answers to the final exam from Professor Tomkins in her conversations with Professor Tomkins during the exam, Professor Tomkins did not provide the plaintiff with substantive answers to the exam questions, which would be inappropriate and unfair to the other students taking the exam.”
The fact that she was in counseling over alcohol issues actually makes perfect sense. People with Alcoholism refuse to take responsibility for their actions, shift the blame to everyone else, and can be very manipulative and compulsive liars.
I hope she gets the help she needs- but that doesn’t include extreme accommodations, especially when going into a field like health care.
I have been to three hospitals in the last two weeks alone. Twice with in-patients and once in the urgent care (I am not the patient in any of these scenarios). I am continually amazed at the amount of things that nurses have on their plates. To throw someone with alcohol issues into that type of environment is just begging for a disaster.