From the September 2006 Idaho Observer:

Screens not confined to teens

by The Idaho Observer

Jeffrey Hills in Michigan could not understand why his wife, an excellent student who had graduated after four years of nursing school, could not pass the state test to become licensed. Now he knows why. Nurses are no longer licensed based upon their nursing competency; they are licensed based upon their personality.

The Michigan Nursing Board has authorized a state board license test called "NCLEX®" that is recommended by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) to be administered to applicants seeking state licensure as nurses. The test allegedly contains the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator applications to assess applicant personalities. "My wife and other nurses trying to achieve professional board certification are being subjected to psychological testing without their knowledge or consent," Hills observed.

And many are "failing" to meet the subjective psychological criteria now needed to become licensed as nurses. According to Hills, his wife is a strong, independent-thinking person who is capable of making command decisions and working without supervision. He believes that people like his wife are being screened out of nursing so that mindless, "just-doin’-my-job" types who unquestioningly follow orders will comprise the majority of licensed nurses in the nation’s hospitals, nursing homes and clinics.

Secrecy

Once an applicant finishes the test, it is collected by the state licensing board and "graded." The applicant is then informed whether or not he/she passed, but the results are the property of the tester and are not made available to the testee. Applicants who fail are not told why and have no way of knowing how to study in preparation for retesting.

Further investigations by Hills reveal that many employers are providing job applications that request potential employees to divulge a full-range of personal information. Application for occupations ranging from massage therapist to gas station attendant may involve Computer Adaptive Testing that utilizes complex, personality-assessing software to determine whether or not someone may be right for the job.

The increase of psychological profiling to screen adults for licensure and employment appears to be an extension of "TeenScreen," the federal agenda to assess the mental health of children as a pretext for state-ordered counseling and prescription meds.

Hills believes the nursing licensure problems in Michican are occurring all over the country. "Why don’t the state boards just ask straight questions regarding the applicant’s medical abilities?" Hills asked.

The NCSBN claims that 86 percent pass the entry-level nursing test the first time; 40 percent pass the second time, only seven percent pass the third time; the rest just give up. It costs about $200 to take the test.

With Americans becoming increasingly sickly and the numbers of chronically ill needing full-time care, the demand for "licensed" nurses is huge. So many otherwise qualified nurses are being denied licensure because they did not answer psychologically-loaded NCLEX test questions correctly. There is a nationwide shortage of licensed nurses. Recognizing this problem, "A helping hand to fill the large nursing shortage came in 2005 when the Bush administration made 50,000 international nursing student visas available to fill the gap created by an epidemic of nursing school graduates who cannot pass their state board exams," Hills explained.

Hills is intent on exposing this avenue of psychological sreening because it discriminates against free thinkers as a subtle means to create a docile citizenry. Go to www.socanon.com for more information or to become part of the solution.