I have been a CMA for 14 years working in clinical and hospital settings. I want to get my RN throught distant learning. I could kick myself because as soon as I found out about excelsior they stopped excepting CMA's. Does anyone know why? Does anyone know of a program out there for me?

If I do not find one I am going back to school(distant) to get a bachelors in public health education.

Carla

i've heard that some of the hospitals that hired CMA-lpn /RN grads were unhappy with the level of skills/knowledge some of these grads had and complaints were made to the BON in certain states and this caused excelsior to change their rules. I know that at most colleges the CMA classes can't transfer to Nursing degrees because the levels aren't the same. I would think your best bet is to get a copy of your transcript and sit down with an advisor at a few different programs to see what prereqs you will need and if anything will transfer over at all. You may be looking at starting from scratch though, but at least you will have a leg up on terminology and some office clinical procedures, and that's got to be a great boost in confidence!

i've heard that some of the hospitals that hired CMA-lpn /RN grads were unhappy with the level of skills/knowledge some of these grads had and complaints were made to the BON in certain states and this caused excelsior to change their rules. I know that at most colleges the CMA classes can't transfer to Nursing degrees because the levels aren't the same. I would think your best bet is to get a copy of your transcript and sit down with an advisor at a few different programs to see what prereqs you will need and if anything will transfer over at all. You may be looking at starting from scratch though, but at least you will have a leg up on terminology and some office clinical procedures, and that's got to be a great boost in confidence!

also thought that i would add that if you can find an lpn program that is 1-1.5 yrs you could go this route and then you could finish the RN throug distance learning.