The news dropped on Wednesday that some nursing schools in Florida were selling fake diplomas for upwards of $15,000 apiece. Two nurses I’ve worked with and respect sent me the articles. And I read more on the subject, cross-confirming like you should.
I’ll just let that sit there a moment.
(silence)
I hope that everyone is as outraged as I am.
I hope that all nurses are as outraged as I am.
This is despicable.
And the perpetrators of this scheme should be charged and convicted at the highest level.
The public has tremendous trust in nurses. And now some people out for a quick buck in Florida have decided to shit upon that.
Apparently, the name the investigators gave the investigation was Operation Nightingale.
This goes far beyond the college admissions scandal that caused so many people to be outraged just a few years ago.
The people who bought their nursing school diplomas then sat for the NCLEX. And some even received their RNs.
It is a thing of great fun right now, joking about checking nurses from South Florida. Jokes galore.
But we have to remember that the real victims here are the patients.
Who deserve nurses who have actually been to college to learn to care for them.
I can hear people now if they passed the NCLEX they must know something.
Yes.
They know how to pass a test.
They know how to get around the rules.
Did they pass? Really?
And how do we know?
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 