Posted on 05/12/2023 9:47:07 PM PDT by Libloather
In late January, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced it had charged 25 individuals allegedly involved in a fraud scheme to issue fake nursing diplomas in Florida, with an estimated 7,600 such qualifications being handed out.
At the time, it was unclear how many of the students caught up in the scheme were aware of the fraud or were, as Omar Perez Aybar, a Department of Health and Human Service agent, described "willing but unqualified individuals."
Now, two of those "willing but unqualified" nurses have told of the adversity they have faced, losing jobs and livelihoods, and the legal challenge several are planning in the hope they can have their diplomas recognized.
The two nurses, one of whom is involved in the potential litigation, spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity, over concerns about the legal sensitivities of the case and their names being linked to the schools, which were closed by investigators because of their alleged involvement in the wire-fraud scheme.
"It's like you can't even mention what school you went to now, just in fear of being blacklisted or outcast," David, not his real name, said. "Everyone thinks everyone that went to these schools paid for their degree, which is not true."
According to the DoJ, three schools- Siena College of Health, Palm Beach School of Nursing and the Sacred Heart International Institute- in south Florida created "false and fraudulent" diplomas and transcripts that nursing students could then purchase.
It said "the aspiring nurses never completed the necessary courses and clinicals" to be qualified- a claim Jamaal R. Jones, a health lawyer in Miami, intends to contest on behalf of his clients.
The diplomas obtained from the schools allowed students to go on to sit nursing board exams and obtain licenses as registered nurses in several U.S. states.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Exactly. Technically you can be a lawyer without going to law school. So long as you can pass the bar exam. You can be a plumber or electrician simply by passing certification exams as well.
In my own industry, there was big push in the 1990s for people to go to night school to take these computer courses so they could pass their Microsoft MCSE exams. We used to call them "paper MCSEs" because they'd pay upwards of $10,000 to go to these schools that would coach them to pass the exams but would have no practical experience in the field.
I remember passing my certification exams on Windows NT with just some ExamCram books purchased at the Barnes & Noble.
Getting back to the original article, a nurse working successfully in her field is way more valuable than a young girl who comes out of the top nursing school with no real experience as of yet.
Bingo. Thank you. If they passed the test, they should know enough to be nurses. Or the test is invalid.
And there are i my so many student nurses a busy hospital floor can host at once.
Particularly since they are not permitted to work.
They staffed the hospitals 30 years ago
I don’t know what state you live in, but nurses generally renew their licenses every three years, taking a small number of continuing education.credits, which are easy to pass. Open book tests.
Some nurses have special certifications which may be more rigorous, and some nurses need to certify in Advanced Life Support every two years.
That’s my thought. If they passed the boards that’s what counts.
My certifying board still makes candidates haul their ass to some city at their invitation and face two panels of three inquisitors. Maybe old school but one is unable to beat an oral examination with anything but actual knowledge. And it is brutal watching someone go down the primrose path not knowing it until too late. I have leaned it is not only a true representation of knowledge to sit for an oral exam as a candidate it is an art to giving an oral exam as a panelist.
He makes mistakes that should never be allowed from one with a Masters degree in Accounting, such as omitting the decimal point after the dollar amount on a check to a vendor.
And then a Festivus miracle happens.
i would take issue that internal med is one of the easier specialties. family ned yes. Internal med is very rigorous. Don’t mistake lack of procedures for ease of training.
The dirty little secret is ACLS instructors are not allowed to fail anyone. If you pay your money and take the course you will pass.
Agree
No it wasn’t lack of rigor that I was focused on in internal med. It was flexibility that the discipline provides.
comfortable incarceration.
Lets see.. if it was a $100.00 check turned into a $10000 check!
I bet the vendor was happy!
Fake Diploma some of dat inclusion going on again.
Well I’d like to know what state this nurse is in. We don’t as a general rule have to pass yearly proficiency tests but we do have to keep up to date with education and refreshers that our state or places of employment require us to do. There are tests involved with such “education” in most cases but they not onerously difficult. We do have to stay up to date.
We use a virtual site translator and nurses are using google translate on our smart phones. We have need for mostly Spanish translation services. The Google translation features are generally easier and more “Johnny on the Spot” for our needs and the patient needs and can be type text query with reply type text or audible reply with text. The Spnish speakers generally are smart phone literate and can type spanish to english.
So they passed the boards. They can’t exactly be ignorant slouches.
You'd think.
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