UCC SONM 25 Year Book

UCC / School of Nursing and Midwifery

Recruitment of Students Up to 1995, each Hospital School of Nursing, using An Bord Altranais criteria as guidelines, set its own educational standards of entry, advertising, interviewing and recruiting students. This created many difficulties for potential students, parents, teachers and administrators and resulted in a system which was both inefficient and expensive. In 1973, An Bord Altranais

Staff and students at a recruitment fair

introduced minimum educational standards. In 1995, a centralized system of application and selection for nurses training was established which was administered by An Bord Altranais. Initially, a test was used (prior to Leaving Certificate examination) to assess applicant’s aptitude for nursing. This led to much criticism from both nurses themselves and the public. Candidates chosen by the test were interviewed and awarded a place in a nursing programme, which was confirmed on receipt of specific grades at the Leaving Certificate Examination. Once the degree programmes commenced the interview was removed from the recruitment process due to the recommendations of the Points Commission. Thereafter, recruitment procedures similar to all other university students were applied. All students are now allocated places by the Central Applications Office (CAO), based on points gained in the Leaving Certificate examination. “Traditional” nurse training was replaced by an undergraduate Diploma in Nursing programme in partnership with the Department of Nursing Studies in UCC. In 1996, the Mercy Hospital became the first Cork School of Nursing to pioneer this transition. In 1997, both the Bon Secours Hospital and the Cork University Hospital followed suit in accepting their first student intake for the Diploma programme. All four Schools (Mercy/South Infirmary, Bon Secours, Cork University Hospital and COPE Foundation) had their final intake for the undergraduate diploma Programme in 2001. Thus new relationships were developed between the health service, hospital management, government departments and the university.

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