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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 12, 2010)
S --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- r i. , . , Wednesday 19 omn 1 11he clackamas nrint 3 Brian Steele Clackamas Print . lannon, director of the nursing program, explains some of the features of the program’s mock emergency room where students can simulate life and ntuations down to every detail in the safety of a classroom environment. ursing program shuts out many y James Duncan e Clackamas Print of the average, of the 400 who apply to the Clackamas nity College nursing pro- 'eiy year, only 40 students pted. The requirements are ig at first look as 30 out of Is are needed to even apply jgrani and the rest of the 45 nist be completed in the fall ar you apply. ink we have an excellent Hospitals always love hav- lackamas students because veil prepared, well trained, just really get a good edu- :re. The staff takes a very rest in the students not just ally, but like, they take a interest in their lives, too,” esa Forurtner, secretary of ¿nursing program. L we only go by a point sys- pn their applications, it lists ucan earn extra points and take their GPA for points As are just the prerequisite, r whole chance. So there’s equisite and then there’s ys to earn points also. If you r one of our clinical sites, you extra points. If you’re (patient care we give you ints; if you’ve taken a health class here at Clackamas, you extra points, so there’s earn extra points and bring ints up and the application hose extra ways.” 'process for getting into the (gets more difficult from he required classes are only part of admittance into the [program. ft into the program, an appli- ®t complete the required credits, which must include BI-231 and a math competency of MTH- 095 or higher, a GPA of 3.0 or higher for all the required credit courses and all courses must be completed with a “C” or better. If all these requirements are met, the student may apply, but these are not all the points that are used to count toward acceptance. Acceptance is based on how many “points” the applicant has. The point system begins its calculations like this, (GPA x 24) - 56=points. Once a person has done this, they have another 30 points that are available assuming they meet the require ments. The extra requirements are as follows: An applicant may receive up to an extra five points based on the graded received in BI-231. There are five more points based on how much of the BI-231 series has been completed, with all five points being awarded if they have finished BI-231, 232 and 233 and no points awarded if only finished BI-231 is completed. Another five points are awarded if the applicant has completed all of the prerequisites by the fall of the year they are applying. There are three more points if the applicant has a previous degree with full points awarded for having a masters. Three points for having a lan guage class of203 or higher can also be awarded. Three more points if the applicant has completed any one of the fol lowing programs within five years of the application: Clinical Lab Assistant, Dental Assistant, EMT 102 or 117, Medical Assistant CC orNUR090C. Three more points are award ed if the applicant is employed in the heath care field providing direct patient care such as Certified Nursing, Emergency Medical Technician, Emergency/Operating Room Technician, Medical Assistant, Surgical Technician or Unit Secretary. U We’re very proud of our program. Barbara Cannon Nursing program director And finally an applicant can receive three more points if they are employed at one of the part nership facilities including Portland Adventist, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Legacy Memorial Park, Marquis Care Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Providence Milwaukie, Providence Portland and Willamette Falls. The total number of points is out of 70 with an additional 30 that can be earned if the applicant is selected for an interview. An average of 80 people is selected for the interview and put of that 80, only 40 people will be accepted. “Well it’s really pretty straight forward because there’s definite, clear prerequisite requirements that I go over with every student” said Margie Gibler, an adviser at the CCC Harmony campus where the nursing program is located. It is clear that the CCC nursing program is more than it might seem from the outside. There are critics of the program who say there are just too few positions available in the program. “It looks worse than it actually is. We have over 400 applicants traditionally every year for our 40 positions that enter into the nursing program every fall. We just have fall, winter, spring. We don’t include summer. But those 400 applicants also apply to other schools. And so an organization called the Oregon Center for Nursing Education gath ered all of our information last year from all of the schools in Oregon and ran that data and figured out that there are really 2.3 applicants for every opening in a nursing program each year in Oregon. So that’s really not 10 times as many applicants as we have positions like you’d think.” said Barbara Cannon, director of the CCC nursing program. The competition for these posi tions is intense, but with many other schools having identical programs, it would seem that accusations of the program having too few positions are just not true. The spots might be limited, but hard work is what sets the people who get in apart from the people who don’t Forurtner said, “I encourage stu dents to do the best they can in their classes so their GPA is high, to have a 4.0. We’ve heard that if you don’t have a 4.0, you can’t get into the program. That is not true. But you do want to have as high as you can.” The CCC nursing program is part of the Oregon Consortium for Nursing Education program, which is an organization that helps schools create a standardized education for nursing students. When a school becomes part of the OCNE pro gram, they use the same curriculum as any other school in that program. “They have an online program and a face-to-face program there. We work really closely with Mt Hood and Portland Community College. We also have nursing programs and are also in the state consortium. The fact that those three big community colleges in town have an identical curriculum and identical prerequisite requirements really has been a boom for the applicants, they can apply to eight campuses around the state based oh the exact same prerequi sites,” said Cannon. Other OCNE schools include Blue Mountain, Lane, Mt Hood, Portland, Rogue, Southwestern Oregon and Umpqua commu nity colleges, and OHSU cam puses including Ashland, Klamath Falls, La Grande, Monmouth and Portland. Cannon said, “We’re very proud of our program. We’ve graduated our first OCNE Class already, and they did very well on NCLEX-RN, which is the licensing test that they take when they finish. We were at 97 percent last year, passed on the first time. The program has a great reputation. Our graduates do very well, and we’re very proud of them. There are a couple of different paths and ways that you can go to get your BS after you finish your AA degree, OHSU would be one of them. You can transfer before you graduate or after you graduate from here. There’s students that do both.” The Clackamas nursing program is made of a close-knit family of students arid faculty. If a student manages to get into the school they become a member of that family. For more information see www. OCNE.org or visit the Harmony campus.
