By Kim Manahan
I can understand students feeling stressed out when standards are raised, but it worries me when I hear nursing majors complain that their bar has been raised.
Some students in the program were not happy to hear that they would need higher grades on certain tests. One hopes, however, a medical professional would know everything about what they’re doing.
If anyone is going to be sticking a needle in my arm or administering me drugs, I hope they get everything right so that they know exactly what they’re doing.
The score for the Math for Meds test has been raised to a 90 percent from an 80 percent.
While a reporter was covering this story, she was told by a professor to keep in mind that still means 10 percent of the medications were still administered incorrectly.
In perspective, that means 10 of every 100 patients that this nursing student attended received the wrong amount of medication.
And the wrong amount of medication could be harmful, and, in some cases, deadly.
In a report released by ABC News, since 1995, at least 1,720 hospital patients have been killed and 9,548 injured from mistakes made by registered nurses in the United States.
I have been in the hospital for surgery well over a dozen times, and I can say first-hand that having a vein blown out by an IV is not a pleasant feeling.
One time in surgery, I received a third-degree burn on my ankle, leaving a lovely scar.
Perhaps the students who complain about having to work harder are not confident in their ability to make the correct calculations. Or they could be lazy and like to have some wiggle room.
Now what if this is how they feel on the job?
Things may not go well for them or, more importantly, for the patient.
So here’s a word of advice to those of you few nursing students who find the raise in standards to be a bad thing: Change your major and don’t stick needles in people or administer them drugs.
If they wanted dirty needles or an overdose of drugs, they’d be doing it themselves.
