over 7600 fraudulent nursing diplomas issued

[wesleycrusher]

abc7chicago.com/fake-nursing-degree-diploma-scheme-degrees-sold/12738739/


Officials said the forged diplomas and transcripts were sold from what had been accredited schools to aspiring nurses, in order to help candidates bypass the qualifying requirements necessary to sit for the national nursing board exam. Although they still had to take the exam, the bogus credentials allowed them to skip vital steps of the competency and licensure process, officials said -- and once licensed, those individuals were able to find a job in the health care field.



Overall, the conspiracy involved the distribution of over 7,600 fake nursing diplomas and certificates issued by Florida-based nursing programs, according to officials.

[...]

The sweeping enforcement action spanned five states: Florida, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Delaware, and resulted in more than two dozen criminal wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy charges against 25 individuals.

[...]

Officials said that at this point it is up to the state licensing boards to push forward with action against those individuals under their purview -- some of whom have been practicing nursing "somewhere in the United States, perhaps currently," Lapointe said.

[Bad Dingo]

How does something like this even happen? I mean, is a person like - sure, I want to be a nurse and do this high stress job where people's lives are in my hands but I don't feel like learning how to do it so I'll just buy the diploma? I guess they need some knowledge to be able to pass the exam which I'm assuming is hard.

[wesleycrusher]

Jan 27, 2023 12:23:23 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

How does something like this even happen? I mean, is a person like - sure, I want to be a nurse and do this high stress job where people's lives are in my hands but I don't feel like learning how to do it so I'll just buy the diploma? I guess they need some knowledge to be able to pass the exam which I'm assuming is hard.

Right...illegality aside, I do not have the confidence to walk into a hospital having skipped hundreds of hours of clinical training and pretend to know what I'm doing.

[pixy0stix]

I hope the people who used these "degrees" have their licenses revoked immediately. From the article, most if not all of them knew they were purchasing fraudulent diplomas.

[smock]

Well that's terrifying.

[wawa]

omfg.

Soo...question I hope does not come off in ANY WAY putting down educated nurses - is the licensing exam too easy that you can pass it without having gone to school? I'm trying to imagine if I could just take a cram course and pass the FE or PE (the two licensing exams for engineers) without engineering school or many years of experience first. I'm REALLY good at taking tests and I am not at ALL confident that I could have pulled that off. They said these schools had a bad pass rate, but at least some people were making it.

[chilerellanos]

Jan 27, 2023 14:08:57 GMT -5 wawa said:

omfg.

Soo...question I hope does not come off in ANY WAY putting down educated nurses - is the licensing exam too easy that you can pass it without having gone to school? I'm trying to imagine if I could just take a cram course and pass the FE or PE (the two licensing exams for engineers) without engineering school or many years of experience first. I'm REALLY good at taking tests and I am not at ALL confident that I could have pulled that off. They said these schools had a bad pass rate, but at least some people were making it.

I did not think the NCLEX was hard.

But our tests in nursing school were geared to helping us pass it.

And there’s a ton of NCLEX study material.

So, I guess if you’re reasonably smart, and figure out how the NCLEX is scored and how questions are meant to be answered, you could definitely pass.

[bee20]

It's not clear to me (as a non-nurse) what accreditation this is talking about. Is it possible people who were LPNs used these credentials to get to RN without the additional study?

The article says they likely knew they were fake credentials, but at one of my employers you had to have an MBA to be in certain management roles and there were a significant number of University of Phoenix graduates amongst our executive ranks, whose degrees were presumably awarded based on "life experience" but met the checkbox.

[wawa]

Jan 27, 2023 14:45:01 GMT -5 bee20 said:

It's not clear to me (as a non-nurse) what accreditation this is talking about. Is it possible people who were LPNs used these credentials to get to RN without the additional study?

The article says they likely knew they were fake credentials, but at one of my employers you had to have an MBA to be in certain management roles and there were a significant number of University of Phoenix graduates amongst our executive ranks, whose degrees were presumably awarded based on "life experience" but met the checkbox.

that feels far less shocking.  

side note: MH is also an engineer and I just asked him if he thinks he could have passed our exams without college and he thinks he could.
I think he's full of shit.

[wawa]

The other thing I'm finding fascinating here is the recruitment aspect.
Like, people who had signed up for a legit nursing school but aren't dongi well maybe, or have made comments that indicate they think the schooling is unnecessary get like a wink wink nudge nudge suggestion to check out this other track or other school from a recruiter? At what point does somebody sit you down and give you the sales pitch?

How do you keep that secret?  (eta - well obviously they failed.  But still!)

[VillainV]

Jan 27, 2023 14:45:01 GMT -5 bee20 said:

It's not clear to me (as a non-nurse) what accreditation this is talking about. Is it possible people who were LPNs used these credentials to get to RN without the additional study?

The article says they likely knew they were fake credentials, but at one of my employers you had to have an MBA to be in certain management roles and there were a significant number of University of Phoenix graduates amongst our executive ranks, whose degrees were presumably awarded based on "life experience" but met the checkbox.

My husband has a masters in education from University of Phoenix and none of it was waived based on previous experience (of which he had a lot). They actually failed to recognize the majority of his required observation hours because they didn’t think it met their requirements (it did) so he had to re-accomplish those. Based on that, I do not think University of Phoenix pencil-whips these degrees.

[Saudade]

On the surface, this is shocking and I agree that people who knowingly paid for fake diplomas need to be punished.

The medical community online has pointed out a few things that make me slow my roll in outrage at everyone:

-LPNs obtaining their RNs
-predatory practices towards already licensed professionals from other countries taking advantage of the nursing shortage
-appearance of legit programs

The national board exam (NCLEX) is easy. I've taken LPN, RN, and NP. The hardest by far was the LPN because it was all relatively new. Once I got to RN and NP it was significantly easier.
There are two national accrediting bodies for nursing school: NLN and CCNE. It's a rigorous process for a school to obtain this accreditation and as far as I know, to take and pass NCLEX you must prove you had an education from a NLN or CCNE program. I'm not sure how they would have circumvented this.

[Saudade]

Jan 27, 2023 15:01:31 GMT -5 wawa said:

The other thing I'm finding fascinating here is the recruitment aspect.
Like, people who had signed up for a legit nursing school but aren't dongi well maybe, or have made comments that indicate they think the schooling is unnecessary get like a wink wink nudge nudge suggestion to check out this other track or other school from a recruiter? At what point does somebody sit you down and give you the sales pitch?

How do you keep that secret?  (eta - well obviously they failed.  But still!)

Several of my former coworkers have taught for a local for-profit nursing program. From their stories there are many students who are in the program who should never become a nurse (and I've precepted some of those students as well. It's...a struggle to say the least.). As teachers they're holding high standards but the school is very predatory in their recruitment (see for profit) and enroll just about anyone with a pulse. Eventually many fail out but many do make it through.

[bee20]

VillainV, Based on their current website, University of Phoenix allows for 0 "life experience" credits for educational programs, and up to 110 "life experience" courses for business programs. I don't work in education so didn't realize that program was more stringent.

[Michelle]

This is horrible. I hope it is a matter of LPN to RN or something similar. For the sake of patients.

But still...

[SusanBAnthony]

The first thing that came to my mind was that maybe it's people who were nurses in other countries and their degree/license was not recognized in the US.

I am really curious what else comes out. This is quite fascinating (and obviously horrifying).

[sent]

Jan 27, 2023 12:23:23 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

How does something like this even happen? I mean, is a person like - sure, I want to be a nurse and do this high stress job where people's lives are in my hands but I don't feel like learning how to do it so I'll just buy the diploma? I guess they need some knowledge to be able to pass the exam which I'm assuming is hard.

This is what happens when the internet makes it really easy to hide and collect the monies. This one got caught. Who knows how many other fake certification things are out there. I work in an area with many recent immigrants who are not highly educated and I periodically come across resumes with weird names of programs awarding certificates. Every time I look them up, I’m aghast at what people pay for these programs.