A loved one is in the hospital or a nursing home. How do you know if that registered nurse or licensed practical nurse providing bedside care has received the proper training? In January, the Justice Department unsealed criminal conspiracy and wire fraud charges against 25 people in connection with the sale of 7,600 fake diplomas from three now-defunct Southern Florida nursing schools for $114 million. The certificates enabled untrained individuals to sit for the national nursing board exams and at least 2,800 of them passed.
The fake degrees didn’t make them nurses. The fake degrees allowed them to sit the nurses’ exam. So, the only people who got conned were the nursing schools who didn’t get to charge for 4 years of blather to be allowed to sit the nurses’ exams.
Ain’t that a shame?
36% passed? Multiple choice?
The real question is how did 2,800 of them pass the exam.
Either the schools are shit, the exam is shit, or both.
Multiple choice.
We should be more concerned about any pupils who properly gained the nursing diploma yet still failed the national nursing board exam.
With you up to a point. But these people have bought fake diplomas so won’t be above hiring ringers to take the exam for them. Hereabouts we might look for identical twins but thanks to their “liquor” laws isn’t there a healthy market in fake IDs in the US…
Credentialism ( Pace J Pournelle)
“Credentialism is excessive reliance on credentials, especially academic degrees.[2] The term originally was applied to over-reliance on credentials in hiring but its use has broadened.”
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Credentialism
Pournelle was especially scathing on its destructive effects on any organisation
Dennis,
“The real question is how did 2,800 of them pass the exam.
Either the schools are shit, the exam is shit, or both.”
I’m sure people attending nursing school have books to read, notes written down, maybe even some of the lectures are on video. Combine with a bit of luck with multiple choice.
Look at this sort of thing. Someone worked as a psychiatrist for 23 years who blagged it. And no-one noticed. So either, being a psychiatrist isn’t that hard and can be done with Google, or the people in charge can’t tell if a doctor is doing their job.
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/17232483.bogus-doctor-latest-urgent-checks-3-000-uk-medics/
None of these cases are ever that someone in charge got suspicious about whether they knew their shit, it’s more about some other activity that highlights it (like someone trying to change hospital and the paperwork looks wrong).
None of these cases are ever that someone in charge got suspicious about whether they knew their shit,
None of the ones that make the papers. Fraudsters spotted on the first day are not news.
We get job applications at my work where the degree mills are spotted instantly.
And sometimes it has dramatic consequences. Only one building failed utterly in the Christchurch earthquake with massive loss of life — the one designed by a bogus engineer.
All faith in academic institutions failed the day that a clueless potato was appointed as a professor
Sure, but that was essentially a political appointment, like the emperor Caligula expressing his desire to make his horse Incitatus a member of the Roman Senate (something he never actually did, it was mostly a foil to belittle and humiliate the Senate).
“Ringers” taking exams are a significant problem in the UK, including degrees, driving tests and citizenship tests. I doubt anyone who’s prepared to shell out for a diploma mill degree would be beyond paying for a ringer for a board exam.