‘SEA schools have only 10 percent NCLEX passing ratio’

Only 10 percent of graduates from nursing schools in Southeast Asia pass the National Council Nursing Licensure Examination, while most counterpart schools in the U.S. mainland have a passing rate of 85 percent.

This was cited by the proponents of a medical school on Saipan to justify that the CNMI needs a U.S. type nursing school to produce quality graduates.

In a concept paper, Dr. Johnny Fong, Loyola Medical College Foundation board chair, said that American schools offer two and four-year degree programs in nursing.

Their NCLEX passing rate is 85 percent, but most of these schools, he said, limit enrolment. So relying on them would not meet the growing need for more English speaking nurses in the next decade or so.

In Southeast Asia, which includes the Philippines, schools offer only a four-year degree in nursing. There are a greater number of graduates each year from these schools, he said, but only 10 percent of their graduates pass NCLEX.

“The opportunity to offer a U.S. type two-year program in nursing to supply the estimated shortage of 150,000 trained nurses for the U.S. market over the next five to 10 years presents a very interesting challenge that merits a focused effort,” said Fong.

Further, Fong, a U.S. trained pediatrician, said there is a great need to upgrade the quality of medical education in the Pacific region.

He noted that medical school graduates from the region have a low passing rate of 20 percent in the USMLE, the U.S. licensing examination for physicians.

“There also exists a shortage of licensed physicians in the inner cities and other medically undeserved areas in the U.S. mainland,” he said.

The proposed medical school on Saipan aims to offer a four-year degree program in medicine.

Fong said the school, which would be patterned after U.S. medical schools, would offer the region “an opportunity to improve its health care system and also allow the CNMI the ability to assimilate more doctors into its health care community, which at present is lacking in many specialties.”

The proposed school, Loyola Health Science College, also aims to offer a four-year degree in pharmacy and a four-year degree in dentistry.

Fong aims to enroll 500 students in the first year of operations and 3,000 after five years.

Fong said the college shall be highly computerized, and the curriculum shall comply with all the standards of the various accrediting bodies of the different medical professions.

He said the college shall have a library, with copies of all prescribed textbooks, which shall be shared with students from the Northern Marianas College.

Fong said the school shall operate on a quarterly system, meaning there will be enrolment every quarter “on a rolling open entry, open exit system.”

The school shall work with the Commonwealth Health Center for training and personnel needs.

Fong, a graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, specialized in pediatrics at the University of Illinois Medical Center.

He has been in the private practice of medicine since 1976 in Fresno, California.

Right now, the foundation operates a medical school and a nursing school in consortium with the San Beda College in Manila.

Both schools reportedly have a combined enrolment of 1,000 students.