USF College of Nursing ranks second highest on passing rate for state board exam

Tampa, FL (March 18, 2004) - Graduates of the University of South Florida College of Nursing had one of the highest passing rates in the state -- 98.04 percent -- on the required exam to practice as a nurse.

All Florida nursing graduates averaged 82 percent on the Registered Nurse Licensure Examination (NCLEX) reported the Florida Board of Nursing last month.

"Since nearly all our graduates remain in this area, what this passing rate means is that we have the highest quality nursing graduates entering practice in Tampa," said Patricia Burns, PhD, FAAN, dean of the College of Nursing. "I credit this wonderful outcome to the College's outstanding faculty and the collegial relationship we have with our Tampa Bay partners and congratulate our alumni on a job well done."

Student nurses who have completed their coursework are eligible to take the national licensing exam. The National Council for State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) reports that 82 percent of the 93,216 people who took the exam passed. The NCSBN also states that the number of people passing the NCLEX or the pass rate is a good indicator of how many new nurses are entering the profession in the United States.

Before nurses begin practicing, they must graduate from a recognized nursing program, like USF's, meet specific requirements of the state board of nursing and pass the NCSBN NCLEX exam for registered nurses. USF student nurses who sat for the exam in 2003 were the first to have completed their baccalaureate study in the College's community-based clinical collaborative curriculum, which was recently approved by the Florida Board of Nursing until June 2008.

In 2000, the USF College of Nursing teamed up with nurse leaders from community hospitals to devise the Clinical Collaborative curriculum -- a plan to keep new nurses in nursing and in Florida by bridging the gap between academic preparation and professional application of the skills and knowledge a nurse uses every day.

"The Clinical Collaborative has opened a whole new area of nursing education," Dr. Burns said. "By educating students in an integrated hospital setting, we prepare our students for the reality of patient care and set the stage for a continued relationship between student and hospital upon graduation."

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The College of Nursing at the University of South Florida Health Sciences Center is deeply integrating students into real-world care to anchor them in the nursing profession. The College forged a clinical collaborative with Tampa Bay's leading health care providers to offer students "home base hospitals" with one to one mentoring for state-of-the-practice education. Funding for research has increased 95 percent during the last year and aspires to be in the country's Top 20 for federal research funding by 2008. Research teams are focusing on palliative and end of life care, cardiac rehabilitation, and complementary therapies for chronic illness and cancer. The College offers baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs.