on the pass rate! http://dailymail.com/News/Kanawha/201009291075

After years of low passage rates, all University of Charleston nursing students who took their National Council Licensure Examination test passed it this year

Nine out of nine students who took the certification test passed it. In 2009 only 10 out of 15 students, 67 percent, passed the test and in 2008, 16 out of 21 students, or 73 percent, passed it.

Jennie Ferretti, UC's vice president of advancement, said the board requires nursing programs to have 80 percent passage rates to keep their accreditation.

"And the last time we had over 80 was in 2006," Ferretti said.

The nursing program had an 86 percent passage rate that year, with 12 out of 14 students passing. Only 17 of 29 students passed the test in 2007, dropping the school's passage rate to 58 percent.

Ferretti said the program never lost its accreditation but was put on probation.

"It's such a relief. We have tried so hard," she said. "I'm real proud of them."

She said the university has been working for several years to improve scores but it's taken some time to see the fruits of that labor.
"It's like a football team. Change does not occur in one year," Ferretti said.

"We had some low spots in past years, but we've been working very hard to make sure the program does what it needs to do," said Martha Rader, chairwoman of the university's health sciences division.

She said the program is working to make sure the curriculum is current and only students who are "ready and motivated to succeed" are admitted. She said instructors are also focused on making sure students get good feedback and remediation when they need it.

"It's great. We had some turnover in faculty, and we have a great group of faculty right now who are really committed to student success. That has been one of the really key differences," Rader said.

The school's associate's degree nursing program also rebounded, jumping to 85 percent in 2010 from 78 percent last year. In 2008, 95 percent of students passed the test.

UC's nursing program received another piece of good news recently.

The program will receive more than $250,000 in stimulus money to buy four interactive dummies, which will allow nursing students to further develop their skills before working on flesh-and-blood patients.


Rader said she submitted a proposal for the grant in the spring. She just found out UC was awarded the money a couple weeks ago.

The funds, $252,988 in all, came from the national Health Resources and Services Administration's share of 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill.

Rader said nursing students can practice many real-world techniques on the "simulated humans," such as taking their pulse, listening to their heartbeats and breathing and setting IV lines.

She said she's in the "early stages" of setting up the lab - she's still shopping around for the mannequins - but hopes to have the simulators in place by January.

The university will order four interactive mannequins: one adult, one pregnant adult, one child and one infant.
Rader said the dummies would cost "at least" $70,000 apiece.

"It depends a lot on what you order with the basic mannequin," she said.

Though the grant money covers all the cost of the interactive dummies, the university will have to pay to renovate its existing lab to make room for the new equipment.

UC's nursing students already use Charleston Area Medical Center's interactive dummies, but those aren't available as often now. Rader said the UC has to share CAMC's lab with the West Virginia University medical school and other nursing programs.

"Timing of the grant is great. It will allow us to bring simulation in-house for our students," she said.

Currently, nursing students can work only on static dummies on campus. Rader said those static dummies will remain after their more complex counterparts show up. Students will likely work on those mannequins before moving to the more advanced mannequins, she said.

"When they have a slightly higher skill level they'll be able to appreciate more what goes on in the simulation lab," Rader said.

The university's pharmacy school got an interactive dummy several years ago but Rader said the nursing program's new mannequins would be more advanced.

"Part of that is that the technology has improved and part of it is the pharmacy school isn't as involved in as many kinds of interventions, since theirs is primarily pharmacology," she said.

If the mannequin needs its feet elevated, its vital signs will respond after students reposition it.

"You can do all sorts of interventions in that way and get a response," Rader said.

The fake patient's blood pressure might rise in a simulation go up or the mannequin might groan and say "I'm having pain in my stomach."

"The baby won't be speaking, obviously, but it might cry," she said.

Rader said the university's nursing instructors are very excited about the new simulators. She said some nursing students are bummed, though.

"I know those that are going to graduate this year are sad they will not have had more opportunity to work with the mannequins," she said.