I have been a RN since 1989, graduated with a ASN. Since that time I worked in ICU, Open heart surgery, PICU, Med/Surg and Behavioral Health. I have had the pleasure to have worked as a Nurse Executive only to be told after 25 years to get a BSN. I have a BS in Public Policy and Organizational Leadership and Master of Arts in Theology/Counseling. I asked my employee why after working 13 years a their Executive Nurse on Med/Surg/Peds that they thought I needed a BSN. No answer just demands or lose my job. I told them to stuff it! At 57 I was not going back to school for a BSN when it would only achieve increasing my debt ratio.
Since then I haven't been able to hire on anywhere but a Nursing Home. Let me tell you it is a blessing to work in geriatrics, yet the BSN's that work there are clueless, needing alot of training and retraining which I don't mind doing. It just saddens me that at the end of my career Nursing still has its quirks like they did in the 80's. Remember the period when medical assistants where hired to work in ICUs? That fiasco lasted less then a year.
God bless all of you who have had to face this new fiasco of BSN only apply. I am wondering who agrees with BSN only need to apply?
I'm puzzled by your fifth option on your poll. "Legislate to get rid of BSN only need apply"?? No state legislature is going to pass a law telling employers they can't require a higher than minimum education level for potential employees.
Regardless of what any of us may think about this trend in nursing employment, employers can and (many) do choose to require (or, at least, prefer) BSNs of their nursing applicants. The "handwriting has been on the wall" on this issue for many years now (and there are a kazillion threads on this topic on this site). I'm surprised by the number of people who post here who seem to have been caught unawares by this. We can disagree with the idea, and get righteously indignant about it, as much as we like, but it is what it is. It's not likely to change until there once again is a real nursing shortage, and, even then, it might not change.
In the USA anything can be legislated. The requirement to be a BSN serves no purpose other than to divide the ranks of nursing professionals. Seems to me that people who make up these silly rules just want to look down their pompus noses at those they believe are less intelligent than they are.
In the USA anything can be legislated. The requirement to be a BSN serves no purpose other than to divide the ranks of nursing professionals. Seems to me that people who make up these silly rules just want to look down their pompus noses at those they believe are less intelligent than they are.
Not "anything" can be legislated. I doubt v. much you could interest any state legislature in passing a law that would require employers to employ people with a lower level of education than the employer prefers. Even if that were to happen, so what?? Employers would just remove the "BSN only" statement from their job descriptions, accept all applications, and those applications indicating less than a BSN would simply go into the electronic equivalent of the good ol' "circular file." Employers who feel strongly about the issue would continue only hiring those with BSNs. What are the applicants without BSNs going to do? Sue the employers? Good luck with that. It's hard enough to win employment discrimination cases now, when they are about people who actually are members of protected classes. And equal opportunity employment laws are set up to protect those individuals who can't help being members of whatever protected group they are. You can't change being black/minority, or female, or older. It would be hard to convince legislators that they should pass a law providing equal opportunity protection for people who can change their status (acquire a BSN) but are choosing not to.
Your other two statements are your opinion. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but other people (including many employers) are equally entitled to hold different opinions. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it doesn't really matter what you or I or anyone else thinks. "The train has left the station" on this issue (and it left the station some time ago). As the old saying goes, we can adapt or we can die (not actually die, in this case, fortunately :), but get left behind professionally).
Think about physicians. As with nursing, all that is required for them to legally practice medicine is completion of medical school and a year of basic internship, and a state license. However, they can't actually get practice privileges (or get hired as an employee) in most hospitals without completion of a residency and board certification. Yet, you don't hear physicians complaining about how that's unfair and hospitals should be forced to offer admitting privileges to physicians without the additional education and credentials.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I understand your frustration at the situation. You have a lot of experience and on top of that your are "bachelor/masters-prepared" if not a BSN.
In your 25 years and 13 years at the exec level did you never have an employer that offered tuition reimbursement?
Sent from my iPhone.
Here is my question...why at this point with hhis extensive education and experience....
I have been a RN since 1989, graduated with a ASN. Since that time I worked in ICU, Open heart surgery, PICU, Med/Surg and Behavioral Health. I have had the pleasure to have worked as a Nurse Executive only to be told after 25 years to get a BSN. I have a BS in Public Policy and Organizational Leadership and Master of Arts in Theology/Counseling. I asked my employee why after working 13 years as their Executive Nurse on Med/Surg/Peds
...does he suddenly "need" a BSN to do the job he has been doing competently for the last 13 years?
With the OP's multiple degrees exactly how could a BSN possibly offer to improve his 25 years of nursing practice her at 57 years old? Heck it wouldn't even offer clinical bedside hours to refresh his bedside skills.
Here is a perfect example, like myself, of age discrimination and degree inflation.
OP...your employer just wants to pay an inexperienced RN, with a online masters degree, less and get rid of you, and your salary/benefits, easily without severance.
YOUNG NURSES PAY ATTENTION HERE! THIS IS YOUR FUTURE. It might be a BSN now...the future will be a masters for $40,000.00+ to keep your bedside job.
Here is my question...why at this point with hhis extensive education and experience.... ...does he suddenly "need" a BSN to do the job he has been doing competently for the last 13 years?
With the OP's multiple degrees exactly how could a BSN possibly offer to improve his 25 years of nursing practice her at 57 years old? Heck it wouldn't even offer clinical bedside hours to refresh his bedside skills.
Here is a perfect example, like myself, of age discrimination and degree inflation.
OP...your employer just wants to pay an inexperienced RN, with a online masters degree, less and get rid of you, and your salary/benefits, easily without severance.
YOUNG NURSES PAY ATTENTION HERE! THIS IS YOUR FUTURE. It might be a BSN now...the future will be a masters for $40,000.00+ to keep your bedside job.
Degree inflation at it's best.
OP ((HUGS)) Welcome to the club....
I believe new RNs should be BSN educated. It makes sense to me that other healthcare profession have or are required to be prepared at the graduate level or higher-i.e- physicians assistant, PT/OT, pharmacists.
However, nurses in your situation with that experience should be grandfathered in.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I believe new RNs should be BSN educated. It makes sense to me that other healthcare profession have or are required to be prepared at the graduate level or higher-i.e- physicians assistant, PT/OT, pharmacists.
However, nurses in your situation with that experience should be grandfathered in.
Sent from my iPhone using allnurses
I am all for BSN entry minimal..this diploma, ADN, should have gone away LONG ago! I am also tired of the my piece of paper is better than your piece of paper...it's time to put this petty argument to sleep.
However, I strongly object to nurses being bullied after YEARS of dedication and service being told they are no lounger worthy/qualified when the degree being demanded is online and offers little towards bedside expertise.
It is merely a tactic by administrations to get rid of the high paid senior nurses.
I am currently a nursing working to acquire my BSN. I also come from a large family of nurses, most of which have an ASN. My position, and some of theirs, is that new nurses should be required to acquire a BSN. However, current nurses who have had several years or more should not be effected by this. From my understanding, a BSN gives more focus to community and cultural health than one would receive in an ASN program. The extra semesters and courses involved for a BSN also forces the student to be in school longer, to improve critical thinking skills, and to improve general communication skills. I don't believe the BSN trend has to do so much with nursing skills, but rather the personal development that is seen with further education. Yes ASN nurses develop these skills on the job, and hence why it is wrong to penalize nurses that have already been in the field and gained this experience. However, at the end of the day, as a patient, while I would prefer a ASN with 10 years experience, if the choice came between a brand new ASN or BSN, I would choose BSN. Yes there are always exceptions to this rule, but in general this is probably the case for all of us.
If new RNs should be BSNs, (with no reference to a specific area of nursing), then they should shut down the ASN educational doors! There is no sense in deception to fill money-hungry pockets who insist on knowingly issuing worthless degrees. I work side-by-side with LPNs in two major acute care healthcare organizations in this state. They have been LPNs working with these facilities just as long, if not longer than I had been an LPN. We are all bedside nurses. I find it absolutely amazing that these nurses have never worked at any other organization. The RN (no BSN) lost her position as DON, but this organization literally created a position for her rather than send her to the unemployment lines. The LPNs have not been threatened with their jobs whatsoever.
Four years ago when I first worked as an RN (originally hired on as an LPN seven years ago) for this organization, they did do a system-wide assessment of the number of BSN RNs under its employ. This is what started my gradual pursuit of the BSN. So far no move to BSN only. What they did do was to no longer hire any more LPNs.
The point I'm making is, thankfully for them, our employer chose loyalty and servitude over trends, and probably realized that it would lose a heck of a lot of money by mandating a BSN because those loyal nurses have been eligible for retirement for some time now (and this is just at the one facility where I work), they support and hire a lot of ASN new grads/colleges, and this is a multi-facility, state-of-the-art organization that still has to use agency nurses on the regular as it is. Participating in such trends would have crippled this organization's infrastructure and profits, especially since it owns facilities in rural areas (the handful of rural BSN newbies develop starry eyes and head for the big city, resulting in those rural facilities to populate with primarily all ASN and LPN staff) in addition to 4 major ones in the metro area.
Holding steadfast to current design was a wise move for all those involved in the organization because no matter what is believed about BSNs and patient care, patients will and do suffer from a lack of experienced nurses regardless of the license or degree held. For what it's worth, our organization does offer tuition reimbursement and forcing these long-term acute care nurses to return to school would only mean higher payouts once they do retire because after all these years, there is no reason to believe they would take the advanced degree and move on elsewhere.
Nursing is actually a bit behind the curve of other professions requiring more education to practice. Like it or not, "fair" or not, the profession of nursing is moving toward a day when an RN will be required to have a minimum of a BSN, and the Diploma and ADN will be quaint reminders of "the olden days". I would not be at all surprised to see this same argument surface ten or twenty years from now when the requirement to be an RN is an MSN.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that a 60 year old ADN with 30 years in nursing should be kicked to the curb. Employers need to make allowances for those who are valuable employees and for whom the expense of additional education just does not make sense. But if you have ten years or more of working life ahead of you, you should be investing in the additional education that will keep you employable in an evolving marketplace. That light at the end of this tunnel is the headlight on the reality train, and you don't have to be a 21st Century Nostradamus to see it coming.
Remember the period when medical assistants where hired to work in ICUs?
I agree with you that requiring a BSN over a lifetime of RN expeirence is ridiculous, HOWEVER, are you really comparing BSN training with that of a medical assistant? BSN's are trained nurses and take the same NCLEX as ADN nurses, MAs are usually a small certificate program offered at trade schools. BSN is 3-4x the education of an MA, and 2x the education of an ADN.
I'm sure there are ADNs out there just as clueless as your BSN coworkers.
Also, it is possible other things are playing into your inability to find work outside of LTC. Ageism and over-qualification being two very real possibilities.
Oh, but wait, Guys! That's not the end of it! You now need to make sure that your degree is a BSN and not a BSn. Yep, that's right! Since BSN is the going thing these days and some of us did or are going back, the infamous 'they' have decided to complicate things even further. It seems that there is a difference between a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Bachelor of Science with a major in Nursing.
But then a couple of days ago, I got a call from a potential employer who wanted to clarify that I indeed had a BSN and not a BSn.
Whoever called you is obviously an idiot and must not know that BSN is = BS in Nursing outside of Academia. The are virtually the same degree in the professional world.
Congrats on going back and getting your BSN. I only have my ASN and have been debating whether its worth it or not to get the BSN. What are your thoughts? Has it been worth it for you?
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Congrats on going back and getting your BSN. I only have my ASN and have been debating whether its worth it or not to get the BSN. What are your thoughts? Has it been worth it for you?
If you plan on working 10 years from now...yes get your BSN. It is the only option for you to stay gainfully employed.
michaelvgrigsby
5 Posts
In the USA anything can be legislated. The requirement to be a BSN serves no purpose other than to divide the ranks of nursing professionals. Seems to me that people who make up these silly rules just want to look down their pompus noses at those they believe are less intelligent than they are.