Integrity in Nursing School

Integrity in this environment is a tough thing to have. I remember one of my first posts of nursing school being about this very issue. Well here I am again, and I am really trying to figure out what the hell is going on. This place is like corporate America, people do whatever it is they feel they have to do in order to get the job done - even if it isn't right. So, same scenario as the first time, we had an online exam, but this time it was open note and open book. That's great, but the questions were tricky - everyone agrees on this point. My grade? 68. (FAILING) Class average? 90. (HIGH PASS) Now, I'm routinely a little bit below average - like 5-10 points give or take, but failing when everyone else almost hit the honor's range?!? Never. So, of course, I ask around town what the hell is going on. What happened? How did you know that answer? I couldn't find it anywhere, etc. (We were allowed 2 hours to take the exam - I answered the last question with like 1 minute remaining - I could NOT find the answers!) Here's what happened:

1) They made it a "group exam," meaning they all got out their laptops and took the exam together, dividing the questions among themselves, and figuring out the discrepancies as a group - which we were specifically told NOT to do - in fact, we were also required to take the exam in the school lab (which is under video surveillance). Some of the advantages of this are obvious, but one advantage that I think might not be so obvious is that because you have all those people, you can do a more thorough search of the internet - which is what you had to do to figure out some of the correct answers because his notes were not clear on some topics...so people had to read articles they found on Pub Med, etc. to find the answers, which is doable when you have four people helping you look for the answer, but not when you are taking the exam alone!

2) They used last year's midterm, which had the correct answers for 75% of the questions. A midterm we obviously weren't supposed to have access to - even considering it was open note, open book.

Here I am again, pondering the question of personal integrity versus survival in nursing school. What good is personal integrity if I do not pass the class and therefore do not finish the program? Can one be a person of integrity in an environment where integrity does not exist? Or is this like the "it is dangerous to be sincere with insincere people" thing? Is the cost to the individual worth it? Am I willing to take a chance on failing Nutrition in order to maintain my basic level of integrity? I have worked really hard not to let this place, this experience, turn me into someone I am not, someone I (and those who look up to me) will not be able to recognize. Repeatedly people defend themselves by saying, "it's just the way the game is played." I don't buy that. There has to be some level of self-responsibility. Pass at what cost? But I also understand this: do NOT pass, at what cost? There is a real opportunity to pass this class without using the final exam that is floating around campus...but there is also a real possibility of failing it by one question - which I just experienced. Where is the conversation that should be happening among the other folks who failed this exam because they did not cheat (there are at least 5 others who I know of) No one is going to tell, because we are not the moral police, right? But where does that leave us? Failing. And I find it so ironic that this is all happening in an environment where we all sign an "honor code."

Hmpf, honor code my ass.

The Embarrassment of Ignorance

I don't know how I did on biomed yet, but the class average is below failing. (He gave us the average but no specific grades until tomorrow) People still swear they didn't have a hard time with the test. When I finished the exam I said how hard I thought it was, but most other students said they didn't think it was too bad - even though word around campus at that time was that it didn't go so well. (TAs get the scores before we do and they start the general buzz about whether it was good or bad) So what we have here is people who are unwilling to admit that they find the material difficult. The problem with this is that it makes it seem as though only one or two people have a problem - which means those one or two people should take time out of their already impossible schedule to go visit the professor on their own time, when, in fact, the class as a whole doesn't understand what's going on and therefore the material should be explained in a different way...or something.

Then, I failed the med math exam, too. Yep, I'm just failing all over the place. And, of course, everyone says they think they did well - nevermind the fact that you get your score right after you finish the exam! You should know how you did. But anyway, so I am expecting to go to the math office for my remediation tutoring and have plenty of one on one help. Ha! Instead I find at least 20 people in the damn hallway- and this is 15 minutes before the tutoring sessions even began! But everyone did so well.

It's one thing to BS your way through plot summarization in lit class, but it's a whole different world to attempt to BS your way through nursing school. You can't fake it. If you give someone the wrong med, the wrong dose, or at the wrong time you could actually kill someone, ie: K+. Potassium is what we use to kill people on death row by lethal injection. How the hell do you gloss over the fact that you don't know how to properly administer that? Is it really that embarrassing to not know all the answers? Do type A people base their self worth on how much they know, are they really that competitive? I used to think I was a Type A, but now I don't think so. I took the test and I came out 44. I guess I'm neither, which seems right. I am embarrassed by ignorance only if it seems like something I really should know. But I am not embarrassed to not get it on the first try, and I don't think anyone should be. How does one learn anything if they swear they already know everything?