After three years, a male grad tops nursing board exam

ANDREO C. CALONZO,
Source: GMANews.TV

With his first place finish in the July 2010 nursing board exam, Ateneo de Naga University graduate Rayan Oliva brings pride not only to his school but to the Filipino male population as well as he is the first male to top the exam in three years.

Oliva broke a three-year trend of female nursing graduates topping all six nursing licensure exams given by the Professional Regulation Commission from June 2007 to November 2009, according to data culled by GMANews.TV.

The last time the nursing board exams had a male graduate as a topnotcher was in December 2006, when Jayben Matamis of the Unciano Colleges and Medical Center in Antipolo City topped the 19,712 passers.

Since then, the topnotchers have been female nursing graduates, the latest being Clarie Bontol of the Iligan Medical Center College Inc. in Lanao del Norte, who headed the list of 37,527 passers of the November 2009 nursing board exam.

Oliva, who hails from Camarines Sur in Bicol Region, however continues the trend of provincial nursing graduates ranking first in the licensure exams.

Since November 2008, provincial exam takers have been leading the list of passers.

At that time, Jovie Ann Decoyna, a farm girl from the Baguio Central University, was announced as the topnotcher in the nursing board examination.

Top-performing schools


Although the topnotchers in the past four nursing board exams all came from the provinces, the list of top-performing schools for this year showed a mix of colleges and universities both from urban and rural areas.

The Chinese General Hospital College of Nursing and Liberal Arts in Manila was named the top-performing school with 100 or more examinees this year, with a passing rate of 99.60 percent. It was followed by the West Visayas State University in Iloilo, with a 99.36 percent passing rate.

Three universities—Saint Paul University in Iloilo, University of the Philippines-Manila and the Philippine Christian University-Manila—were meanwhile named as top-performing schools with 30 to 99 examinees. All three schools posted a 100-percent passing rate.

Two of the top-performing schools this year—the West Visayas State University and Saint Paul University, both in Iloilo—also made it to the list of schools with 100-percent passing rate during the November 2009 nursing board exam.

Slightly higher passing rate

The overall passing rate for this year’s nursing licensure exams, meanwhile, slightly recovered from the figures last year, when slightly less than 40 percent of the exam takers managed to pass the exam.

A total of 37,679 out of the 91,008 exam takers, or 41.4 percent, passed the nursing exam given last month by the PRC Board of Nursing. This figure is a slight improvement from last year’s 39.7 percent passing rate.

The number of exam takers this year also slightly declined compared to the November 2009 figures, when 94,462 graduates took the exam—the highest in history.

The high number of exam takers supposedly reflects the popularity of nursing as a field of study due to the promise of a well-paying job abroad.

The popularity of nursing as a field of study has also prompted the mushrooming of sub-par nursing schools around the country, despite a government ban on opening of new nursing schools implemented six years ago.

–VVP, GMANews.TV

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Top hospitals show bias

for male nurse directors

Male nurses are twice as likely to hold a top job in England’s leading hospitals, a Nursing Times investigation has revealed.

source: Nursingtimes.net

In a survey of 84 acute trusts, 47 of which had foundation status, 8.1 per cent of non-foundation trust nursing directors were men but the figure jumped to 14.9 per cent among foundations.

By contrast, men make up just 7.9 per cent of the total acute nursing workforce.

The figures are being blamed on the “business ethos” of foundation trusts deterring women from applying for leadership roles or being picked for top jobs.

Unison head of nursing Gail Adams called the figures “worrying”. They could be due to foundation trusts focusing on their business models instead of “moral and ethical” concerns over equality, she said.

She urged foundation trusts to investigate whether women had been disadvantaged because of career breaks or biased recruitment processes.

Julie Stevens, West Middlesex University Hospital Trust consultant lead nurse in tissue viability, said: “The perception is that [in an FT] you need to have more of a financial head.”

Men might be seen as more “financially canny” than women, she added. Nurses had little training in business, but men were more able to “put on a front”.

Royal College of Nursing head of policy Howard Catton agreed foundations were perceived to have a “harder style”. He said that, added to the lack of senior clinical leadership at regulator Monitor, could be associated with a male bias.

The same trend was apparent when deputy nursing directors were included in the figures. Taken together, nursing directors and deputies were 10.8 per cent male in non-foundation trusts but 15.5 per cent in foundations.

Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust director of nursing Brigid Stacey said, as male nurses were in the minority, “they might want to fight harder to get to the top - to be the big fish”.

“It might be that men want to strive harder for those prestige [foundation trust] jobs,” she said.

However, NHS South Central chief nurse and director of clinical standards Katherine Fenton said she was “really, really surprised” at the figures.

She said: “My personal experience is that it [gender] has never held me back, and it’s not included as a factor in our appointment panels. It might have been true 25 years ago but it’s down to merit now.”

A smaller sample of 27 mental health trusts, where men make up a bigger proportion of the nursing workforce, shows a similar pattern as acutes.

Among mental health foundation trusts, 37.5 per cent of nursing directors were male, compared with 27.3 per cent of nurse directors at mental health non-foundations.

David Robinson, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Foundation Trust director of nursing, quality and safety, said his trust, where three quarters of senior nurses were female, was an “exemplar”.

He said: “We try and ensure gender and ethnic balance throughout the organisation by nurturing talent. Flexible working applies right up to director level.”

Claire Murdoch, a former nurse who is now chief executive of Central and North West London Foundation Trust, admitted women had to break through a “glass ceiling” to get to the highest positions.

However, she said some of the gender imbalance was due to women consciously staying in their “comfort zone” rather than pushing themselves into more senior roles, which were harder to juggle with childcare.

She said while employers should allow staff flexibilities to cope with senior roles and child care, there needed to be a “reality check” about how far that could go as board positions were largely full time jobs.

NHS Employers employment service deputy head Caroline Waterfield said Nursing Times’ findings did not show there was a “glass ceiling” for women, but rather that “there isn’t a glass ceiling for men”.

Nursing Times’ research suggested the gender imbalance was less pronounced among primary care trusts. As PCTs will be abolished from 2013, this could lead to many senior female nursing leaders being made redundant.

A Monitor spokesman said it was up to boards to choose the right person for the job.

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