Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Texas Nursing Jurisprudence Exam

The Texas Nursing Jurisprudence Exam is now available online. It will be interesting to hear what the applicants think of the exam (easy, hard, confusing, straight forward). I also wonder whether the applicants will consider themselves well prepared for the exam and if they believe they learned important information to prepare them for nursing practice in Texas.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a travel nurse who was just offered a job in Texas. I can tell you that I am re-thinking if I want to pursue it based on this exam. Why do I want to submit myself to exams such as this one for every new state I go to? -then to have a comment like yours posted as to is the exam hard, confusing, straight forward! I am not a guinea pig! I am a well educated nurse of 20 plus years who has worked in 7 states. I do not need to spend my money getting to Texas to see if I pass a test and if not it was all a waste for everyone involved. There are 49 other states out there, who don't feel they need to harrass nurses about their carreer and education.
In my opinion you're only hurting yourself and discriminating against all nurses who have already taken the national NCLEX exam. Wouldn't a brochure on Texas nursing practice had been enough??
And to think you're a state that frequently needs help with hurricane issues!

Julie said...

To the previous poster:

I, for one, am grateful to this blogger for opening up a discussion on the exam. I haven't taken it yet, and I first found this page because I was searching the internet to see what other nurses have to say about the exam. I wanted to get an idea of how much I should study and worry about it. I imagine that the exam would already have had to pass the experimental stage before it hit the nursing public, so I don't feel like I'm being asked to be a guinea pig.

I just moved to Texas from Michigan, and I found the TX licensing requirements daunting at first. But after looking into the process, I realized it's not as difficult as it seems.

For one thing, you can get a 120-day Texas temporary license, without having to take the nursing jurisprudence exam. All you have to do to get the temporary license is apply and pay the fee. The temp license would be enough to complete a 13-week travel assignment.

The ease of getting a temp license also means that out-of-state nurses would *not* need to take the jurisprudence exam prior to working on hurricane relief efforts in Texas. The Board of Nursing instates emergency authorizations to practice in such instances, anyway.

If you did decide to take the exam (which is necessary to obtain a permanent Texas license), it would be hard to fail:

- The exam is online, and is "open book" - you can have the TX nursing laws and regulations, and whatever other materials you want, sitting in front of you as you take the test. The BON website even states that you can have one browser open with testing resources, and another browser open to your exam.
- The Board makes available a cheat sheet of topics and where to find the answers in the regulation book.
- It's not a speed test - you get 2 hours to correctly answer at least 38 questions out of 50.
- If you were to fail, you would be allowed to retake the exam until you pass.

Finally, I'm oddly grateful that the TX BON is requiring this proof that its nurses understand the state's nursing laws. At least it shows that the state is taking steps toward ensuring safer practice. Now, if we can only get the state to mandate patient-nurse ratios...

Anonymous said...

Thank you Julie for your comment. It was clear, intelligent and informative!
May I ask you how you obtained verification from MI for you Tx license application by endorsement? I can not find the information anywhere on there website and I am running out of time (no luck with my phone calls attempts either).
Thank you for your help!
Juju

Julie said...

Hi Juju,

Welcome to Texas!

I found the information on the Michigan Department of Community Health website, at this URL:

http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,1607,7-132-27417_27529_
27542-136686--,00.html

The page does state it takes 20-30 days for the state to provide the verification. I hope that's not too late for you! I don't know whether it is possible to expedite the process.

The State of Michigan will mail your verification directly to the TX BON. The TX BON mailing address is posted here:

http://www.bon.state.tx.us/contact/

Good luck, I hope all goes smoothly with obtaining your TX nursing license!

Unknown said...

I am not from the United States, but I am obliged to take the Texas Nursing Jurisprudence exam, I already took it 3x not because I failed but because my internet connection sucks. It will not allow me to continue and instructed me to wait after 24hours. I was unable to finish the test. I am just worried if it will cause me trouble. Please advise. I am already finding a better connection. Thank you

Taralynn Mackay said...

Because of the way the online testing is set up, you do need to have a good,reliable connection established so you do not get kicked out of the exam and marked as a fail.