Nursing students held a demonstration Friday outside the Quebec Order of Nurses office in Montreal to demand something be done about the exams they failed.
Some had just finished night shifts at hospitals where they work as nurse's candidates.
They say the provincial nursing order’s final exam was poorly translated, and failing the exam has put their current jobs and future career at stake.
Eric Berkin failed the test by four per cent.
“I'm angry, I'm mad that a professional order can't write a proper professional exam, not only translation and the confusion of sentences and all the syntax and grammar errors . . . I want a change,” he said.
The students say they shouldn't be used as guinea pigs – they're the first cohort to write a new final exam they say is flawed.
“For me, I was up for a job at a hospital and I passed everything, I passed their exam at the hospital and the next question they asked me: 'Did you pass your order exam?' I said no and they said ‘OK we have you on a list,’” said student nurse Raphael Bedard.
The students want the Order to throw out the exam, waive the $206.92 review fee and they want transparency.
After being faced with a petition, the Order said they'd look into it.
“I know that at that meeting between the OIQ and the English institutions the OIQ presented statistics on the French and English school success rates and the English schools did significantly worse,” said McGill nursing student Gabriela Mizrahi, who was going to Dawson when she took the test.
So far, there's no comment on the exam results or the process.
“Right now we don't feel that we can make conclusions or comment on those kinds of comments about numbers, because out of respect for everyone involved in the process,” said Chantal Lemay of the Order.
She said they have no timeline for its investigation.
