BSN is a joke

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I am a nurse at a major hospital where I have worked over a year after gaining my ASN. I have returned to get my BSN. What I'm not understanding is why there is such an ENORMOUS disconnect between what I do at work and the class work I need to do. It doesn'y apply at all. I have to take family care classes and informatics with very little practical application. I have to memorize all the rules of APA. My patients don't care if I can wrote a wonderful APA formatted paper. They just don't. It's like there is no appreciation in BSN education for what nursing is really about. At no time will I EVER do a CFIM on my patient or a PEEK readiness assessment. Get real. Where is the disconnect? Everyone I talk to say's the same thing about their BSN program, that it is completely useless. Who decided that nurses needed extensive training in social work and paper formatting?!?! I don't deal with social work. I have a team of social workers for that. At no time will I ever be in a patients home trying to improve the communication between family members ect. There are family counselors ect for that. It isn't my job! Yet here I am getting trained in areas I have no interest in, and will never ever use in my career. And for what? So I can say I have 3 letters behind my name and the school and hospital can make more money? Its a joke. I'm learning nothing of value. I would drop out and find a new school, but everyone I talk to has the same opinion about where ever they went. Basically healthcare has become obsessed with accolades, but forgot that those accolades were supposed to represent a level of expertise.

Why is there such an enormous disconnect between real life nursing and nursing education??!?!?

It's part of the curriculum, sure. But, it doesn't have real world/nursing applications except in certain circumstances. I've worked in several different hospital areas and clinics and the only time I ever looked at an EKG/rhythm was when I worked in clinical research. I'm not quite sure why you would think that reading rhythms is something every nurse would be doing on a routine basis. It's just not. I haven't looked at a rhythm in years and guess what? I'm still out there working. :)

It seems like there are so many patients on bedside or telemetry monitoring that it would be more common.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Are you sure about that? I don't ask sarcastically, but when the large-teaching hospital I used to work at was trying to regain in its Magnet status, it certainly did count the number of BSNs in the bunch. And I was told it was because it was a goal, or benchmark (or whatever you want to call it) for the status.

Every facility that I wored that wanted it or had it wanted BSNs only or at least a higher percentage of BSN to ASN. As magnet journey can take some time once facilities decided to try to obtain that, I recall it being amoung the first notices to go out.

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I found that my BSN fast track program for non-nurses trained me to pass the NCLEX, not to be a nurse. Now, I'm in an MSNP program and feel like I'm being groomed for the University's DNP program, NOT to actually be an NP. Pharmacology? Hematology? Not important... APA formatting is where it's at.

I agree that it's absolutely asinine. I have ZERO interest in ever getting my DNP. I'm almost done with the MSNP program and feel entirely unprepared to be an NP. But, I can write a hell of a paper. Woop-dee-doo.

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My facility actually does give more money per degree you hold. I am an ADN simply because that's what I want to be. There used to be a program that you could download that put your papers in APA format automatically. Cost around $30. I used that through school. And thank you for expressing my feelings about this issue.

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If you ever do home care, you will be there when SHTF, and it won't hurt to have a few techniques you can whip out to try to diffuse the situation...

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The fact is that, as I mentioned in my earlier post, at my last reading fairly recently, 26 states didn't require ANY continuing education units for license renewal, while some states require 30 CEU's in a two year license renewal period. We are talking about a huge variance in continuing education requirements for license renewal; surely this affects the quality of nursing care. However, nursing leadership appears not to be interested in this. Why?

The point of my response was that requiring continuing education for licensure renewal doesn't "surely" affect the quality of nursing care. It's a meaningless, empty gesture. If you have some evidence that states requiring some arbitrary number of continuing education hours for licensure renewal does improve the quality of nursing care in a given state, please share it and I'll be glad to take a look.

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The point of my response was that requiring continuing education for licensure renewal doesn't "surely" affect the quality of nursing care. It's a meaningless, empty gesture. If you have some evidence that states requiring some arbitrary number of continuing education hours for licensure renewal does improve the quality of nursing care in a given state, please share it and I'll be glad to take a look.

Interesting that you find the continuing education requirement to be an empty gesture but you don't find the requirement that nurses should have to go back to obtain a BSN an empty gesture. Even if some nurses treat continuing education nursing requirements lightly, you can't generalize this to the entire population of US nurses and make a blanket statement that continuing education requirements don't help nurses improve their practice. That would be a ridiculous position. This entire thread includes numerous nurses personal experiences of how little the BSN is helping them improve their nursing practice. Is it possible that as an advanced practice nurse and I understand, former nursing instructor/faculty member yourself, that you have more of a stake in the BSN/higher nursing education?

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Interesting that you find the continuing education requirement to be an empty gesture but you don't find the requirement that nurses should have to go back to obtain a BSN an empty gesture. Even if some nurses treat continuing education nursing requirements lightly, you can't generalize this to the entire population of US nurses and make a blanket statement that continuing education requirements don't help nurses improve their practice. That would be a ridiculous position. This entire thread includes numerous nurses personal experiences of how little the BSN is helping them improve their nursing practice. Is it possible that as an advanced practice nurse and I understand, former nursing instructor/faculty member yourself, that you have more of a stake in the BSN/higher nursing education?

Where did I say that I support a requirement to make nurses return to school for a BSN? I don't. I acknowledge the reality that many employers are requiring this, and I am a big fan of education in general, but I don't believe I have said anywhere that I think requiring RNs who don't want, for their own reasons, to further their education to complete BSNs is a good idea.

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5:38 pm by elkpark

Quote from Susie2310

Interesting that you find the continuing education requirement to be an empty gesture but you don't find the requirement that nurses should have to go back to obtain a BSN an empty gesture. Even if some nurses treat continuing education nursing requirements lightly, you can't generalize this to the entire population of US nurses and make a blanket statement that continuing education requirements don't help nurses improve their practice. That would be a ridiculous position. This entire thread includes numerous nurses personal experiences of how little the BSN is helping them improve their nursing practice. Is it possible that as an advanced practice nurse and I understand, former nursing instructor/faculty member yourself, that you have more of a stake in the BSN/higher nursing education?

Quote by elkpark

Where did I say that I support a requirement to make nurses return to school for a BSN? I don't. I acknowledge the reality that many employers are requiring this, and I am a big fan of education in general, but I don't believe I have said anywhere that I think requiring RNs who don't want, for their own reasons, to further their education to complete BSNs is a good idea.

Last edit by elkpark on 5:47 pm

From Susie2310 to elkpark:

You stated that continuing education requirements for license renewal are an empty gesture. Empty gesture means meaningless/ineffective. I said that you don't find the requirement that nurses should have to return to school for a BSN an empty gesture. I didn't say that you said you support a requirement to require nurses to return to school for a BSN. Please read my post again.

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Quite the opposite of my disposition toward my BSN experience...I was a diploma RN for a long time before I did my BSN. I loved it. It made me fall in love with my career for opening up my world-view of nursing and healthcare in general. I learned to read, understand and do research (thanks to APA), and to appreciate healthcare as a whole- policy, care, research, management etc.

My diploma program on the other hand was tunnel-focused into care-giving and doctor's orders and nursing procedures. I disliked it so much, though I must say it really did its job of preparing me for the bedside- nothing beats the Diploma RN in achieving that- you do lots and lots of clinical hours apprentice-style; at graduation you are like a good one or two year experienced nurse, depending on the program! So you actually hit the road running! I had no problem passing the Nclex even though I was schooled outside America and English is not my primary language.

However, I could tell even then that it was insufficient for more broad-minded nurses who want to go beyond status quo and improve healthcare beyond one-on-one nursing care. There weren't many opportunities for a BScN in my country, so it was my push factor to immigrate. Cut story short, I enjoyed my BSN- which I did online while working as an RN. By that time I already knew what I wanted to do in my future and selected electives that matched my interests. Later, I avoided an MSN for the same reason, I wanted to see healthcare from a different viewpoint altogether (a personal choice, nothing wrong with an MSN). So I am completing my masters in medical anthropology with a thesis on global health nursing. I am beginning to look at PhD programs that are interdisciplinary and hope to combine global health, nursing and medical anthropology. So I am using anthropological theories to understand the role of nursing in global health. I have learned how robust nursing really is, and the BSN opened this path for me. BTW, I am, and have been a floor nurse in acute care for 2 decades in different countries and on 2 continents! I am studying while working. I am starting on an Independent career slowly, and hope to transition altogether in a few years toward the dawn of my career life. My clinical experience and my education have created a completely new type of nurse in me. Nursing is not only about hospital specialties, it's much more, and a BSN prepares you for all there is. As someone with an ASN, you will only take parts of the BSN not covered in your ASN. Those who take straight BSN from high school take both in one program. So take the BSN as a combo of yr ASN and the rest that makes it up- you are simply completing the BSN!

It is necessary for our profession to be considered truly professional and to influence healthcare more significantly that nurses are more widely educated, otherwise you are more like a technician than a professional. You lose nothing, in fact you gain, and advocate for better care for yr patients if you can understand and participate and even initiate research; ask questions instead of only taking orders and following procedure steps; see a patient not only as a disease entity fixable with pills versus a "non-compliant" one, but as one whose health is effected by many other cultural and socio-economic issues; see the weaknesses in health policy and in biomedicine itself, and challenge them. You can even challenge nursing practice, management or education better if you understand better. You can challenge govt policy, and "big pharma." and lobby politicians etc. because they affect yr job and yr patients.That's what a BSN prepares you for. Moreover, it opens you up to so many other new opportunities even if your goal is direct patient care for the rest of your career. So, why not? Nurses make the biggest group of health caregivers in the world, yet our voice is not heard, we are not influencing the WHO or health policy or health disparities in our world because we have been slow to educate ourselves more robustly and are trained to care only for the patient in front of us, and even then, so inadequately, obviously, because we are myopic.

Best!

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Specializes in Tele, Dialysis, Med-Surg, ICU,GI.

OP if you are unhappy with your BSN program, withdraw, you get what you put into it. If you want to know about EKG interpretation and other things, seek opportunities in your hospital or on the outside.

Nursing being in taught in colleges, is a recent phenomenon. Why? Nursing was considered women's work. Women weren't admitted into colleges a 100 years ago, that is why these diploma programs developed in hospitals. Now more than ever we have access to amazing educational opportunities. Nursing should keep up with these developments and move forward. Every other profession isn't fighting it.

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It seems like there are so many patients on bedside or telemetry monitoring that it would be more common.

That hasn't been my experience at all. Bedside EKGs are common, but when we have someone requiring bedside or tele, they're in a specialized unit.

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