I have now taken the CPNE test 3 times and have failed every time. I have been an LPN since 1985 have worked in a hospital for almost 20 years; I have worked in Case management and as a med/surg staff nurse. I am well known and respected in the community by area physicans, staff members; in other words I am not a sloppy nurse I was thought to be an RN by most of the staff and physicans.
In each instance of failure it seemed that more than half of the testing LPNs failed, this makes me concerned are they truely testing your skills or are they lining their pockets for the next time??? Who monitors these test sites and who checks up on them??? My last testing site was Savannah, Ga. I previously tested times two in Atlanta. There were 9 of us initially at the Savannah site and I think there were only 3 left when I left on Saturady of a weekend testing schedule. The Friday Lab session was stressful since everyone had trouble with the equipment... Especially the leuer lock syringes they provided us for our IVP 3 of the 4 I attemped to use were faulty and the sterile gloves provided for the dressing change where so stuck together it was almost impossible to get them on without contaminating them. All the stations and procedures were timed you not only had to work with faulty equipment but you also were being timed& talk about stress.
Saturday starts the pcs (patient care situation) there was no scheduled lunch break - you were always stressed, the only time you knew you had to yourself was the 25 min break inbetween patients. I passed my first pcs but the instructor had to look up my nursing diagnois in my care plan book and it took her awhile to find it - shouldn't an instructor know if it was approiatate for the diagnois—this was done on my time 2 1/2 hours to complete pcs from chart review... To report. To patient care... To medication and finally to documention. The instructor lost track of time during pcs while I was documenting I looked for her at the time decided but didn't see her and went on was looking over notes. She stated you went over time, I explained she was not seen on the unit and I was waiting for her. I was passed surprisingly, probably because they knew it was their responsibilty to monitor time and knew I would have made an issue about it.
2nd pcs with a child, my instructor said to me "if I look at you funny, it's not something you are doing, I am in terrible pain in my shoulder, it's not you it is the pain" why was she working under these circumstances??? Needless to say I was failed on this pcs... Was her judgement and critical thinking skills impaired by pain... Or possibly medication???
I have spent more money than I want to know about and now have been left with nothing but the humiliation of failing and the feeling that hard working lpns are being ripped off, because they can't do traditional programs, who is out there looking out for us especially with the nursing shortage now upon us, what if any are the remedies to this??
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