Fiasco (My NCLEX Story)
Category: About the NCLEX-RN, Filipino Nurses, Filipino Nurses' Stories, Posted on August 13th, 2009 by adminNo Comments
I am a Filipino nurse and I want to share this story that actually happened to me. Like most of the people in the Philippines nowadays, I dreamt of working abroad. It is a known fact in the Philippines that companies in economic giants such as the USA, the UK, Japan, China, the UAE, etc. pay their employees a good amount of wage in exchange for their services. Wages that are much higher compared to what the companies and institutions are paying here in the Philippines. Poverty being a huge problem in the Philippines, most Filipinos are tempted to try their luck. I am specifically focused in working in the United States of America. So I went through all the necessary things that I need to do to realize this dream. One of those is taking the NCLEX. This is what my story is all about.
I graduated with a degree in Banking and Finance. After graduating, I applied for a job at a certain food chain. My superior’s daughter is taking up Nursing in the school where I graduated. She said the opportunity for Filipino nurses overseas is overflowing, and that’s what I have always been hearing. My aunt is a successful nurse in the US and I can really tell she gets paid beautifully by the institutions where she works (she’s got two jobs from different institutions). Unsatisfied with the small income that I am getting from my job I decided to go back to school and take up Nursing. I implored the help of my aunt regarding my finances since my parents are still funding the schooling of my two other siblings. I didn’t bother to ask my parents to pay my schooling again since they have finished paying for my degree in Banking and Finance and I should be generating income and help them with our day to day expenses. I am ashamed but they understood my intentions were clean and I am doing it not only for myself but for the entire family. My auntie gladly granted my wish. She financed my schooling and everything until I will be in America. That includes all the exams that I need to take and all the applications that I need to do. She even helped in processing my papers so I could work in the US. I am so thankful to her.
After passing the Nursing Licensure Exam in the Philippines, I volunteered at a hospital just adjacent to where I live. While working I self-reviewed for the NCLEX. In the year 2007 I took the NCLEX in Manila. I was pretty confident but somehow nervous knowing that the exam is expensive and if I will not pass I don’t know what to say to my aunt who is paying for it. I have always made it a point that when I take an exam I will not eat too much prior to the exam because of the fear that my stomach might tease me during the exam and I’ll need to go to the bathroom to deal with it. And so the exam started, I was so focused in finishing the exam as fast as I could; I just want it to end so that my agony of being nervous would end as well. I even paid less attention to the instructions. At first I was doing well, the questions were easy, then not so easy, then it became hard and even harder. At the middle of exam, despite of my effort, my stomach teased me but in a different way. It was grumbling like it was eating itself, I was so hungry. The grumbling was too much and as ignorant and foolish as what I did, I stood up and went out of the testing room and grabbed a bite, no one halted me to stay put so I told myself it’s perfectly fine. It took me ten minutes to finish a burger and a glass of juice and after that I went straight back to my computer. I finished the exam at a considerable time. I was pretty confident that I would pass. Days after, the result came out and it was the other way as I expected, I failed. I’m not really sure which factor contributed to my failure, was it my study habit or me getting out of the testing room in the middle of the exam, a fiasco of some sort, I don’t know.
I shared this story to let every nurse know that taking the NCLEX should be done with earnest efforts. Doing otherwise would result to what happened to me. Aside from its expensiveness, the time spent in this exam (from processing, review, exam proper to waiting of results) is way too long, summing up both would result to “hustle” and “stress”. Taking the exam lightly would give you one word; “failed”, and there goes all the hustle and stress you went through.