I'm a new nurse working on a telemetry/med-surg unit at a hospital in southern New Jersey. Right now, I'm back in school for my BSN (required by the hospital as a condition of my hire), currently taking two classes: Conceptual Foundations and Wellness & Health Assessment. Most of what I'm learning was taught in my initial nursing program, with the exception of a bunch of APA writing content, nursing theory, different nursing degrees and their associated career paths and multiculturalism.
APA writing is apparently to prep nurses of the future for doctorate degrees, which I have no intention of ever pursuing.
Multiculturalism is great and I love learning about other walks of life...but on my own terms, face to face with actual people...not through textbook.
Furthering my education is the furthest thing down on my list of concerns: I just want to come home from work, enjoy my days off with my girlfriend and our respective families, play with our dog and pursue my own interests as they episodically capture my interest.
To give a background, I majored in Spanish at a liberal arts college. I've also done quite a bit of traveling and I speak German, so I think I've gotten my fair share of foreign culture exposure. While there is a lot I don't know and could stand to learn, there are better things I could be learning that would benefit ALL of my patients.
They say care from BSNs is shown to have better outcomes, but I argue that it is not the BSN degree per se, it is the increased motivation of BSN students that leads to the better outcomes. In other words, just because you don't have a BSN doesn't mean you lack motivation to learn. If I weren't required to be in a BSN program I know for sure I would still be furthering my knowledge, but in ways that would be relevant. For one, I would take a medical Spanish class. I don't get a ton of patients who only speak Spanish but there are enough for me to feel motivated to want to take such a course. I would also use this time to enhance my EKG interpretation ability. This is a major happening on my floor and I feel like I'd be serving ALL of my patents better by studying this. I'd also pursue an ACLS class and, eventually, med-surge certification. The BSN courses of Patho and Pharma I would take, too, but only these because they focus on the patient care content which I find interesting.
Having to come home from working a night shift and think about school is taxing on my other responsibilities, social life, family connections and consequently, morale. To do my job effectively I have to get a lot of sleep. I don't have time for leisure reading. I don't have time to stay in the loop with friends or relatives with the exception of parents, girlfriend and maybe two or three other individuals.
I went into nursing as a second career, after having achieved a BS and an MA in other fields. I am ADN prepared, and not so happy that this degree is being locked out of hospital nursing in place of the required BSN. There is something demoralizing about being told, if I want to eat, I have to go back to school, with all the schooling I already have. Not me. No way. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Its a higher education scam brought to you by left wing think tanks in Washington , DC. A way for schools to enrich themselves while putting more than half the nursing workforce out of work, or in a position of limited employment options. A BSN does not make for a better nurse, because 99% of what you gain in nursing comes from learning hands on, at the bedside, not from classrooms. Therefore, until I can retire, I just have to grin and bear the thought that homecare, LTC or corrections/ psych are what is available.
I went into nursing as a second career, after having achieved a BS and an MA in other fields. I am ADN prepared, and not so happy that this degree is being locked out of hospital nursing in place of the required BSN. There is something demoralizing about being told, if I want to eat, I have to go back to school, with all the schooling I already have. Not me. No way. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Its a higher education scam brought to you by left wing think tanks in Washington , DC. A way for schools to enrich themselves while putting more than half the nursing workforce out of work, or in a position of limited employment options. A BSN does not make for a better nurse, because 99% of what you gain in nursing comes from learning hands on, at the bedside, not from classrooms. Therefore, until I can retire, I just have to grin and bear the thought that homecare, LTC or corrections/ psych are what is available.
I agree.
That being said, I think that having all nurses BSN prepared from the start is a good thing. The return for me was redundant, at best, and a total waste of time and money.
That being said, I think that having all nurses BSN prepared from the start is a good thing. The return for me was redundant, at best, and a total waste of time and money.
Exactly. BSN classes are exorbitantly expensive if you go the online route, and the traditional classroom instruction at this point in my life/ career is like sucking a rotten egg (sorry) ....it does not change the scope, the knowledge, or the pay rate, but really just places a work/ life burden on all existing ADNS, just because some useless think tank said so. At this point, if I were to return to any type of schooling, it would be certificate based in the building trades so I could expand my employment opportunities in that venue, but most definately not the BSN route.
Staple1027: I haven't talked about this to many people, so you are the first person to conclude in words similar to my own: politically motivated, get more people in greater debt, indoctrinate everyone with a government-endorsed set of ethics...as if the gov needs to tell me how to be a decent human. Some of my old nursing professors did a great job of showing me how to be a horrible nurse/person (one in particular showed me a pic of a parasitic twin right after it was born...taken with her own cell phone without any authorization.) If you look at stats on schools' first-time pass rates for the NCLEX-RN (at least for NJ), it shows clearly that BSNs are no better prepared than ADNs. I was fortunate though in that I stumbled into one of the better ADN programs, which scored higher than many BSN programs and so I passed the NCLEX on the first try. As you can probably imagine, that fueled my belief that a BS was not going to make me much better, if any. It just goes to show that much of the difference between a BSN and ADN is fluff.
Staple1027: I haven't talked about this to many people, so you are the first person to conclude in words similar to my own: politically motivated, get more people in greater debt, indoctrinate everyone with a government-endorsed set of ethics...as if the gov needs to tell me how to be a decent human. Some of my old nursing professors did a great job of showing me how to be a horrible nurse/person (one in particular showed me a pic of a parasitic twin right after it was born...taken with her own cell phone without any authorization.) If you look at stats on schools' first-time pass rates for the NCLEX-RN (at least for NJ), it shows clearly that BSNs are no better prepared than ADNs. I was fortunate though in that I stumbled into one of the better ADN programs, which scored higher than many BSN programs and so I passed the NCLEX on the first try. As you can probably imagine, that fueled my belief that a BS was not going to make me much better, if any. It just goes to show that much of the difference between a BSN and ADN is fluff.
There is a new grad BSN I know who cannot pay her student loans, because the hospital she is working for is paying piss poor wages, because they can (saturation point reached years ago for RNs, and BSNs). She is making the same money I made 17 years ago when I first started, so...do the math on that, the BSN scam is alive and well, and its sad and sort of infuriating at the same time.
You're going off the rails into tin foil hat territory with your BSN bashing. I don't really like school even though I like learning but I'm not going to get on your bandwagon about how it's a government liberal conspiracy that you're being forced to get your BSN to extort you of your money.
Your anecdote about the poor BSN student who can't pay her loans is a completely different discussion about the cost of education vs. pay rates and etc. As has been discussed SO MANY TIMES before, if an area is saturated with nurses and you either can't find a job or can't get market rate pay, you're going to move- just like any other job.
BSN vs ADN has already been discussed numerous times so I wont reiterate the arguments, suffice it to say that you're not the first.
Other professions require at minimum a bachelor's degree. I don't think nursing should be any different. I've been a nurse for 14 years and was always annoyed with "nurses only have a 2 year degree??" When asked from other medical disciplines. I think to be taken seriously we should meet that minimum requirement. Clearly people do well with diplomas and adn degrees. We all have to pass the same boards. That being said at some point you may want to advance your career so it's a great thing to get your BSN now. You won't regret it.
Many nurses with BSNs have admitted they feel no more qualified than nurses with ADNs. I think this is supported by the fact that many ADN programs have more first-time pass rates than many BSN programs, see here:
I have commented on this topic before and agree with the OP and many of the commenters. I graduated with a three year "Diploma of Professional Nursing" twenty-five years ago and have been actively employed in various practice areas in several states. Throughout my tenure in the profession, I have never felt that I was ill-prepared or that this entry into nursing was second rate. However, like many nurses in acute care, I was mandated to return to school for my BSN. I studied hard and struggled some, but finally completed my online degree (summa cum laude) at a top-rated university. I'm sure many will disagree, but I strongly maintain that all of the information that was imparted to me, I could have sat down on a Sunday afternoon and read. What would have really helped me (and most nurses) in practice, and truly advance the level of professional nursing care would have been topics such as; Advanced Pharmacology, higher level Anatomy and Physiology, Chronic Disease Management.... Just my opinion of course, but I can tell you all of the highly educated "nurses" with abbreviations behind their names as long as your arm, who I wouldn't trust to care for a cat. What's also ironic to me, is that I suffered through this program, sacrificed, paid out $26,000, and went right back to my old job, earning my same pay, and doing the same job I've done all these years. Hmph!
staple1027
25 Posts
I went into nursing as a second career, after having achieved a BS and an MA in other fields. I am ADN prepared, and not so happy that this degree is being locked out of hospital nursing in place of the required BSN. There is something demoralizing about being told, if I want to eat, I have to go back to school, with all the schooling I already have. Not me. No way. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Its a higher education scam brought to you by left wing think tanks in Washington , DC. A way for schools to enrich themselves while putting more than half the nursing workforce out of work, or in a position of limited employment options. A BSN does not make for a better nurse, because 99% of what you gain in nursing comes from learning hands on, at the bedside, not from classrooms. Therefore, until I can retire, I just have to grin and bear the thought that homecare, LTC or corrections/ psych are what is available.