Originally Posted by BSNtobe2009
During the 50's and 60's, BSN's were extremely rare and taught at precious few colleges.
ASN's were not created because the BSN program "didn't take off". I would encourage you to check your history on that one. ASN's were created when hospitals slowly stopped offering diploma nursing programs that were offered directly through the hospital.
Since you copied my post, please interpret it accurately. I never said anything about "dumbing down" NURSING, as you conveniently and inaccurately added in.
Your ARGUMENT was that there was NEVER (ever!) going to be a requirement of a BSN because of the SHEER NUMBERS of nurses needed for the HEALTHCARE profession.
I said, "Sheer numbers of A PROFESSION (not specificaly nursing, ANY PROFESSION IN WHERE LARGE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES ARE NEEDED) is never a reason to "dumb down" the requirements in order to INCREASE NUMBERS".
Then I WENT ON to LIST SEVERAL PROFESSIONS, where large numbers of employees are needed, BUT THE EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS HAVE BEEN STEADILY INCREASED OVER THE YEARS, despite marked shortages.
For at least 20 yrs before the advent of ADN programs, leaders such as Dr. Brown advocated a jump to college level prep. The BSN programs didn't 'take off' on this model because it was very difficult to encourage workers to get a bach degree for what at the time amounted to a minimum wage job. It's not that there was anything 'wrong' with being a BSN, but that there wasn't enough interest in the programs because it was widely considered overkill. The result is that these programs only appealed to educators, and not bedside nurses.
There needed to be an intermediate to move to college level prep.
You are wrong to say that ADN programs took off because the hospitals stopped offering diploma programs. Hospitals began to have huge problems recruiting for their programs. Post WWII women either turned to nuclear families, or had learned because of the war that their options weren't limited. And diploma programs were basically 'chaperone' programs for adult women until marriage. Why commit to 3 yrs of not seeking a husband for a job that I really don't need when I can work anywhere? It's not that the hospitals stopped offering diploma programs (they worked GREAT for hospitals and hospitals resented the move away from their cheap labor pool). No, it's that those programs weren't able to sufficiently recruit in changing times.
And so the ADN program 'took off' because it was a great compromise between two extremes. It rode the post WWII GI bill wave of community colleges and it seated nursing education in a more favorable environment, where science became more important than anecdotal legacies.
Hospitals saw the advantages, in both superior education (not knocking today's diploma programs, they have adapted to the same superior level), and in the ability to recruit nurses. THAT is why diploma programs failed - because the ADN was a better alternative.
And the reason WHY BSN programs 'took off' in the wake of ADN programs is because the college model was validated. At the same time that ADN programs grew from 0 to 60% of programs, BSN programs grew from 5% to 35% of programs. The ADN program might have been a model that supplanted diploma programs, but it was also a model that validated BSN programs.
It's just not true to say that ADN programs 'dumb down' or 'hold back' nursing. ADN programs were the critical link to move nursing education to the college arena. BSN programs could not have done that alone because the jump from untrained apprenticeship to bacclaureate degree was too large for the stakes being offered. ADN programs provided the bridge between the two. They 'took off' because they work, and they work well. As a direct result, the stakes have equalized to the prep required and there is a real incentive for a student to go to a BSN program to be a bedside nurse.
I think we should examine how to move forward. But the key to doing that is two-fold: 1. We don't ignore the legacies that brought us to this point, and 2. we involve all stake-holders. There is a rational argument for BSN entry moving EVERYBODY along. Putting down the ADN programs that got us this far isn't it.
And, I never said that because there is a greater relative need for nurses, that 'dumbing down' the requirements was justified. I said that that drives the debate much more than a concept of 'shortage'. I disagreed that a 'shortage' holds back this issue; rather, for our employers, the relative greater need for nurses generally holds back this concept, shortage or not. And THAT is why our employers will never agree to BSN and will always outlobby for those requirements to be tabled or modified.
If your goal is to strong-arm BSN entry requirements by making them law, you are outgunned and not by ADN students but by employers with better lobbyists that don't want to give away the very pay and respect you think such a requirement would bring.
You are mistaken if you think that 'magnet' programs will offer this bridge to BSN-entry. Their goal is not improving nursing as a model, but improving the retaining of nurses. They may advocate for BSN entry, but they do all still hire ADNs with experience and most important, they still do not provide a real differential in salary that would move the standard to BSN. The goal isn't to create a new an improved BSN nurse: the goal is to offer non-monetary incentives for nurses to move to BSN at ADN prices. Think hard about that before you invest your hope in these programs for BSN. They might want BSN, but they want it WITHOUT the pay and respect that would come along with it. For employers, this is the magic pill: how to get a better trained nurse without having to pay for it in precisely the terms that you adocate such a move should create. For nursing's entire history, being 'called' was used as a rationale to pay nursing less. For magnet programs, they have simply substituted a measure of repect for BSN and some minor improvements that should have been standard fare in any case as a rationale to pay you less.
I think we CAN move to a BSN entry model. But it will take a consensus of all of us. And THAT is why I think that denigrating ADNs hold back this debate. So long as it is fundamentally polarized, it goes nowhere. 40 yrs of history should adequately prove that.
Where we go from here is either to continue to go nowhere, or to respect each other in whatever transition we all decide is best.
~faith,
Timothy.
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