Nurses make the grade (in Canada nursing exam) PhilNurse 4/15/09

In February 2009, 68 Filipino nurses working in the Saskatoon area took the Canadian Registered Nurse Examination. Of those, 57 passed and 11 failed. That’s an 84 per cent pass rate, almost unheard of for internationally trained nurses writing the exam for the first time, according to Donna Brunskill, executive director of the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association.

The national pass rate for nurses who are trained outside of Canada and who write the exam for the first time is around 60 per cent, she says. Historically, nurses trained in the Philippines have had a 43 per cent pass rate. The provincial pass rate for the Filipino nurses who wrote the exam in February was 81 per cent while 97 per cent of those who graduated from the Saskatchewan nursing education program passed the exam. The nurses learned of their results in mid-March.