[Histonet] HT pass rates

[lpwenk <@t> sbcglobal.net]

Hi - My email server has been down, so I'm wading into this discussion late.
Hope you all don't mind me putting in some statistics into some of the
questions/comments.

As for the pass rates of the HT exam:

1. July-Dec. 2004 - not yet published, so I don't know where the 75% failure
rate figure is coming from for the "last exam". For Jan-June 2004, the HT
pass rate was 49%. (that's those people who passed both the written and
practical)

2. Typical pass rates: Usually in the range of 45-55%, from my looking back
at the last several years of stats. So the first half of 2004 was in the
same range.

3. Look back - in the years that followed the advent of DRG's (1984) and
CLIA '88 (with the 1994 deadlines), many people who had been working in the
field for many years, were scared that they might need to be certified. So
they  took the exam "at the last minute", without studying, and the pass
rates did dip.

If I were a betting person, I would be willing to gamble that, when we get
the July-Dec 2004 stats, the pass rate is lower than usual, just based on my
past experience with phone calls I received after " DRG and CLIA", and the
ones I'm receiving now. People not passing the exam, wanting to know:
- what books to buy (didn't look at the booklist they received, nor did they
study from a book),
- what topics to study (didn't look at the outline they received),
- do they really HAVE to know all the chemicals in all the stains, or even,
- do they have to know all the histology stains if they only do 6?

They just figured, since they had been working in the field of "X" years,
they knew it all. Sigh.

Yes, some that didn't pass say they did study and tell me the books they
studied from. But many didn't study, or didn't study enough, or didn't study
the right material. So I try to help them over the phone, in my "free time",
whatever that is.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)SLS
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073