I worked my behind off for this ASN. I'd been in college for years until then with the usual useless liberal arts degree because "if I did what I loved I'd never work a day in my life" and was completely useless when it came to getting a job. So when I started as a nurse I was beside myself with joy to have, finally, a real job.
Now fifteen years later, it appears the entire state is pushing for all nurses to have a Bachelor's- hospitals don't even interview without one.
I have experience. And no offense to those of you with advanced degrees, but you couldn't hold my penlight. I've been at countless BSN's side when they have to assist an MD and they fall apart- they can't understand a sterile field, they wonder whether they're actually supposed to hold open a wound, they don't know how to wrap a bandage. A wound vac is from a foreign planet to them.
And those Master's trained RNs, geez. I can see that in your graduate studies you never learned how to start an IV, nor an NGT, and you certainly don't know how to irrigate a foley. That last one becomes comical until that MSN is found trying to irrigate the bubble.
Forgive me for my insolence, oh advanced degrees. I have experience. If I were ill, I would want an experienced nurse, not a college kid who read books about nursing until he got all the answers right on the test. But as has always, always been the case in this country, experience means nothing. Only that little piece of paper. And I'm too darn old to go back to school. Say what you want, but there is a place where you want to enjoy life, and reading textbooks is not a part of that.
I just wonder whose pockets are being filled by making those degrees the law of the land.
