In the most recent example of fake nursing making their way into hospitals around the country, a set of Florida nursing schools have been caught up in scam.
Thousands of people who paid a nursing school for a degree have found out that the degree is fake.
What’s more shocking is that at least 8 thousand nurses have passed various state license boards and ended up working at hospitals around the country.
The national nursing review boards have took action and tried to find out where these fake nurses were working.
Many of the fake nurses were working for government run hospitals (which was due to the fact that government run facilities are notorious for having poorly trained and otherwise underperforming Human Resource departments)
With many people around the country seeking to make nurse salaries, it only makes sense that there would be a rush to join nursing schools and become a licensed nurse.
What’s disturbing is that the students who paid tuition to these fake nursing schools were actually able to pass the nursing license test and end up working as practicing nurses in states around the country.
Part of the problem is that nursing board exams (known as NCLEX’s) are notoriously easy to pass. Nursing school in general is something that is considered extremely difficult. Some even say it’s easy.
The hard part of being a nurse is not the academic knowledge required to pass exams (as evidenced here, virtually anyone who takes the exam can pass) but rather the skill needed to deal with volatile patients, bodily fluids and other issues that would make a normal non-nurse squeamish.
It’s not just the blood that makes it hard to be a nurse. It’s patients who attack you, infected disease, projectile vomit, diarrhea and other bodily fluids that you will come into contact with.
Florida Nursing Schools Handed Out Fake Nursing Degrees
The main thing to take notice of here is that the nurses did not willingly commit any sort of fraud. Most of the fake nurses did not know that they did not graduate from a real nursing school. With the abundance of online nursing schools that are around the country it might not be obvious to a nurse what a fake nursing school was.
The classes that nurses take are pretty simplistic, which is why many nurses today are able to work full time while also taking online classes.
One of the most common situations in the modern nurse education system is for a working medical professional-sometimes an LPN, sometimes a PCT, or even a Case Manager who is transitioning into higher paying nurse work, to move into online nursing school.
They can log into the online class while still at work and complete assignments at home when they are not working or during their shift at work when they are on break.
The problem with the Florida nursing situation is that the schools that are being discussed in the news were not graduating real nurses, but rather fake nurses. News stories covered in more detail the diploma scheme.
The nurses did not know any better because nursing schools recruiter from low income, low education areas. They advertise high pay and lots of days off. So it makes sense that its attractive to people who are striving for vacation, high pay, and easy work.
Unlike a career in corporate America, nurses do not have to network or hit performance goals. There are not reports involving sophisticated financial analysis, marketing proposals, or other items that require advanced problem solving skills coupled with academic backgrounds. And there is no competition.
Nurses work with each other. If one nurse out performs another nurse, they won’t make more money. This leads in the best case scenario to a sense of teamwork on the nurse floor.
However, it is true that nurses are not that aware of all of the intricacies involved in the schooling and testing process. Many nurses share exam info and job postings in private nurse Facebook. Rumor spreads fast in the nurse world, so it’s common for nurses to post about easy schools to join. It’s not hard to get into nursing school. The hard part comes when you’re working as a nurse.
Little Oversight Leads to Fake Nurses in Hospitals and Clinics
The major culprit in this story, besides the fake nursing schools obviously, is the hospitals and nursing homes who failed to do proper background checks on the nurses they hired.
Government run agencies, hospitals, and for profit nursing homes are notorious for poor employee performance. The staff who work for government agencies have job security and are notorious for not working—which is why it’s common for staff to be found out to be felons, have fake degrees, and often times not even be employed on site where they are collecting their paychecks.
Nursing homes, on the other hand, are run by for profit private companies that exploit Medicare and Medicaid policies and make as much money as possible. For this reason, it’s well known that nursing homes pay the least for Nurses- and their other staff are often paid less than minimum wage.
In recent years there have been numerous news articles surrounding the terrible behavior of nursing home employees.
What needs to be addressed are the serious lack of oversight at government run facilities. Most hospitals are overstaffed. They follow the rule of hire 3 people for every spot. The downside to this sort of hiring policy is that no one feels responsible for their particular role and therefore work is not done.
More attention needs to be paid to the hiring of competent people for government run hospitals and there needs to be more oversight for nursing homes—especially since they are the site of so much abuse and exploitation from staff and ownership.
Hey I’m Chris . 20+ years in the industry. I’ve worked every role from Executive recrutier to Agency founder and consultant. If you want to learn more or reach me,vist the about page or use my contact form.