DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES SLUR BRING OUT SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET

The recent Desperate Wives Fiasco that resulted to tens of thousands (80,150 by this time) of online signatures, numerous blog and newspaper articles resurrected the problem regarding the Diploma Mills and the Philippine Nursing Board Scandal wherein massive cheating supposedly happened. In that incident, the government had to order a retake after the United States firmly declared that its hospitals will not accept any applicant who got his/her Philippine license from that ill fated exam.

Some bloggers believe that the scandal created a very bad image of our country and destroyed whatever confidence there is on the Filipino medical professional. Hence, the slur…

Because I have a headache this afternoon, I will argue at levels that are way lower than my usual gutter mentality :-D

Here is my distorted opinion regarding that matter.

The US government conducts its own eligibility examinations for nurses. In my limited knowledge, there is the CGFNS and NCLEX to determine the qualifications of foreign nurses, in addition to a few other tests that includes assessments to determine the applicants' ability to converse and write in English.

Requiring the Filipino nurses to take and retake the Philippine Nurses Licensure examination despite their own CGFNS, NCLEX, etc. is not only redundant. It also betrays either the US government’s belief in vast superiority of the Philippine Licensure exam over the CGFNS and NCLEX or their lack of confidence in the US examinations. In regard to the fake diplomas, I have the same answer. The US has its own medical board exam which should expose the fake doctors. No holder of a fake diploma should be able to withstand that. Besides, Filipino doctors have written that they have to get not just passing but exceptionally high grades just to be admitted for residency in US hospitals.

Hmmn..

The superior Philippine exam is the only angle that I can think of, especially after I heard Philippine government officials divulge that nurses from some countries are not even required (by the US) to have nurses’ licenses in their own lands. Why the double standard? May I then pose the question, “Do the US view the Philippine exams as a superior testing process or are they just being bullies with nothing better to do?”

With those doubts notwithstanding, I strongly call for the swift prosecution of the instigators of the fraudulent licensure exams and the criminalizing of Diploma Mills. In my book, massive fraud is not only criminal in nature but it is also as grave as plunder. When applicants are wrongly given licenses to practice civil engineering, permission is in effect given for those people to build firetraps and destroy buildings. In the same token, fraud in the medical licensure exams give substandard doctors the license to tinker with the human body. And worse, they get paid for it!