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Voice-Over: This is The Takeaway with MHP, from WNYC and PRX in collaboration with GBH News in Boston.
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Melissa Harris-Perry: Last week, the Department of Justice announced federal charges against dozens of people for their alleged roles in a scheme that granted nearly 8,000 fake nursing degrees from three South Florida-based nursing schools. The buyers of these degrees knowingly purchased the sham diplomas and transcripts for between $10,000 and $15,000 each. The nursing schools involved are now closed. Dr. Michelle Collins is a registered nurse and an advanced practice nurse and serves as Dean of the College of Nursing and Health at Loyola University New Orleans. Dean Collins, thanks for joining us today on The Takeaway.
Dr. Michelle Collins: Thank you for having me to talk about this really just bizarre story.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Thank you for saying that. I mean, I looked at this like, "Wait, what?" The federal indictments are coming out of a sting operation called Operation Nightingale, presumably for Florence Nightingale. Do you have any sense of what led to suspicion about these degrees?
Dr. Michelle Collins: I don't, and what I've read did not detail that. My assumption is either the employers who hired these people with these fake credentials noticed in their employees, "These people don't seem to know what they're doing," or these people maybe have let their friends know, "Hey, this is a way you could get a quick, easy fake degree." One way or the other, somebody found out.
Melissa Harris-Perry: At first, I thought, "Okay, this means that any person, like somebody like me could just walk off the street and got one of these degrees for $10,000," but as I read in, I was like, "Oh, I see." It allowed them to sit for the nursing exam, which is a pretty tough exam, and presumably, they still did pass that on merit. Help me to understand what steps were skipped and what difference that makes.
Dr. Michelle Collins: Yes, I was surprised too. Something like 32% of these people actually passed the licensure exam, which blew me away. It appears that many of them came from a healthcare background, so if they were a certified nursing assistant, they were trying to get a fake transcript for an LPN program. They were already in healthcare. The way that it works is that when a person completes a college program, the college then sends the State Board of Nursing, in whatever state that person is going to apply for licensure, notice that the student has completed all the requirements, meaning all the courses and all the clinical coursework, the clinical practicum.
Then the State Board of Nursing vets those things and then sends the student, basically, permission to take the national licensure exam called the NCLEX. In these three institutions that were scamming, they sent the boards of nursing notice that these students had completed all the requirements of their nursing degree when they, in fact, had not. That's where we fell through.
Melissa Harris-Perry: For those of us who have not gone through [chuckles] the rigorous programs of nursing, talk to me about that a little bit. Because I'm wondering, so if these are folks who were, for example, in healthcare, maybe they were CPNs and now are trying to move to this other level, presumably that's because in part, at least, we're in a crisis of a national nursing shortage, and presumably it increases their capacity for higher paying jobs. What difference might this make? I do want to note, apparently, at least as far as is currently known, there have not been adverse patient experiences as a result of any of these fake credentialed nurses. Do help us understand, what is at risk here?
Dr. Michelle Collins: The reason that we license nurses is for public safety's protection, to protect the public. Licensure, in itself, sets minimum standards for the person who is seeking that credential, so that the public is protected. Of course, there's always a way that somebody can corrupt the system and get around it. This is just a huge gaffe in the system.
To say that they have not found that there's been any harm caused, in my opinion, you just haven't found it yet. Because if you have people performing a job function where they're delivering medication, delivering treatments, things like that to people, who don't know what they're doing, or shouldn't be doing it, or haven't learned how to do it, that's going to cause harm, they just haven't found it.
Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. We need to take a break. We'll continue with Michelle Collins right after this.
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I'm back with Dean Michelle Collins of the College of Nursing and Health at Loyola University New Orleans. We've been covering both the nursing shortage and, for example, in New York, the nursing strike, the overwhelming sense of burnout over the course of the past three years in the context of COVID. Can you help us to understand those realities in the context of this story?
Dr. Michelle Collins: If you're a health system and you're vetting 50 new nursing applications versus maybe hundreds of nursing applications and you're in a great state of need, you may, for lack of a better term, I'm trying to say any warm body will do-- I mean, health systems are so desperate right now for nursing professionals. There are huge sign-on bonuses offered by some health systems.
I can see where a health system might look at someone's credentials, a fake CV, a fake resume, say, "Great, they're licensed as a nurse. We'll take them," and perhaps maybe the due diligence wasn't done. I can't say that for sure, I wasn't involved in these, but I'm just saying I could see how a pandemic and a nursing shortage could set us up for that scenario.
Melissa Harris-Perry: You're a dean. [chuckles] The little over two dozen people who've been indicted here, it's not as though they all just worked at that university, they were connected in a national network of letting folks know and of selling these credentials. I'm wondering also, what are some of the safeguards? What are some of the ways that you are trying to both address the realities of a nursing shortage and ensure that we have high-quality, well-prepared professionals in these roles?
Dr. Michelle Collins: I think, personally, and I know this to be true for a lot of nursing programs and certainly true for ours, it doesn't mean because there's a nursing shortage that we will lower the bar of excellence. If a student is not going to make it through a nursing program because either they're not applying themselves or they just don't have the ability to do the work, I'm not going to tell my faculty, "Let's pass them because we need nurses."
No, the bar of excellence is the same. Nursing has very long been in polls, the most trusted and ethical of all professions for years they've done those polls, "what do you consider to be the most ethical or most trusted profession?" This sort of thing tarnishes that reputation.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Dr. Michelle Collins, registered nurse, and advanced practice nurse, and Dean of the College of Nursing and Health at Loyola University New Orleans. Dean Collins, thanks so much for your time.
Dr. Michelle Collins: Thank you for having me.
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