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?
What we are seeing are the basic laws of evolution at work. Only the fittest survive. If you didn't see BSN requirement coming, then you haven't been keeping up with nursing. If you don't keep up with professional requirements, then you are culled from the herd. Nature and capitalism are equally cruel. It's not just nursing that feels secure in discarding senior employees - EVERYONE does it. It's YOUR job to stay relevant; no one else's because no one else can do it for you. That's a role of the professional - always peeking a little into the future so you can be prepared to keep up with changes. Change happens at a constantly increasing rate and it's hard
work to keep treading water fast enough, but that's what professionals have to do. There are plenty of jobs out there for people who don't have the wherewithall to keep up. They may even more attractive to some people. You want to make the most money for you time? You'll have to spend something on education.
Really, what needs to happen, is they just need to tweak the ADN program a tad and the credit hours alone in conjunction with pre-reqs would be enough to have a BSN.
Really, what needs to happen, is they just need to tweak the ADN program a tad and the credit hours alone in conjunction with pre-reqs would be enough to have a BSN.
However, that cannot happen due to the fact that there are standards and requirements set forth by the department of education that determine what constitutes an associate vs. baccalaureate education; and from the looks of it, THAT's not going to happen without a fight.
The silver lining is there are universities that have agreements with local ADN programs to get the BSN; that can be a rule instead of the exception.
This is frustrating for me also. I have a Bachelor's in Psych, RN diploma, and a Master's in Health Administration. I have been a nurse for 20 years. I don't feel that another year of school and $15,000 of debt is going to make me a better nurse. (The hospital will only pay $3000 of that.) Part of the problem is the hospitals that are Magnet. There are no exceptions for the BSN. I have already had the classes or classes very similar to those in the BSN program. I am 48 years old. I don't want to go back to school.
Esme is right, I've seen job postings lately in some bit cities that say BSN required, MSN preferred. I don't know how long it will take, but eventually a Master's will be required to work bedside.
The bothersome part about degree inflation is the fact that nurses still get paid as though they have a technical degree. I know I only make about thirt cents more than an ultrasound or X-ray tech at my hospital, and I have a BSN.
So for something they think is so important, it doesn't seem to actually be worth much.
We are going on about 30 years now concerning BSN nurses. When I graduated as a self-supporting student from my ADN program back in 1981, Maryland's congress was instituting a differential between "professional BSN" and "technical ADN" I was furious. I had just put myself through a ADN program and worked very hard to accomplish it. They were threatening to force ADNs to re-take their boards to remain nurses. I was so furious that I just continued to work on my BSN and achieved it four years later. I am not a fan of the ANA, as if you could not tell, and part of their political agendas have caused what nursing shortages there are. They eliminated the diploma RN schools, they forced LPNs to either get their RN or get out of hospitals, they have been pushing the BSN and ADN issues for at least 30 years. Is this so Magnet status can be achieved?? Does your institution offer any form of tuition reimbursement?? Yes, you were good enough with your ADN to do all those other managerial positions, why now has all of that changed?? Its all about money, and it usually is. The politics are stacked against ADN status even though this is the most affordable type of education and I have yet to see where a BSN has been a better way to enter the nursing field. We are all professionals and they had better get use to that!!! Get me off my soap box!!
Actually the NPs are being grandfathered into Doctrates and they are suppose to be obtaining Doctrates if they are new NPs, so the educational trap seems to only be haunting nurses??? How many letters after my name make me a good nurse-----only two or three. RN or LPN!!
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
30 years ago, in my hospital-based diploma program, the faculty and administration were telling us that we should plan on completing a BSN at some point (at our convenience, but definitely plan on doing it), because the days of being able to do whatever you wanted, and go wherever you wanted, in nursing with a diploma (or ADN) were coming to an end -- the diploma was an entry into nursing, but just an entry into, and we should not plan on having a successful, satisfying career with "just" the diploma.
As for your point about the ANA approving "pop up programs," the ANA has absolutely nothing to do with approving or credentialing nursing education programs, or determining who gets to sit the NCLEX. The state BONs approve nursing programs to operate (and establish the qualifications for eligibility for licensure) within a particular state, and the ACEN (accrediting arm of the NLN) and CCNE (accrediting arm of AACN) offer accreditation of nursing programs. Not the ANA. State BONs are not going to stop approving ADN and tech-voc school nursing programs because they would have to have permission from the state legislature to change the basic standards, and that's not going to happen because the community colleges and for-profit tech-voc schools have powerful lobbying organizations and legislators don't understand the details of nursing education enough to have any clue how any of this works. However, that's not going to deter healthcare employers from continuing in the direction they are already on.
I agree that anyone who hasn't seen this coming has been living in denial.
You are correct I misspoke it is the BON that directly approves these programs and the ANA has strong influence on the standards. I stand corrected on the technicality. I generalized and I should know better than that when speaking with nurses... . My ASN program was NOT a community college degree or from the vo-tech. I went to a four year college, brick and mortar (of course because we didn't have computers back then ). I had a quality education that didn't deter me getting from management positions ALL with a ASN . I don't know about you but when I graduated, right around when you graduated, the diploma programs we just being phased out and the ASN programs were "new-ish". However, I am from the midwest....maybe it took longer to get there.
I am glad your program was informative for you. I graduated from a brick and mortar, well respected, 4 year college that emphasized that to be a Nurse Practitioner (BSN level then) or management it was going to require a more advanced degree. I managed to not get that degree until about 6 years ago, had a lustrous career in Senior management without the BSN. I agree 100% that the entry needs to be BSN from one point forward.
Alright nursing leaders....Make the decision and do it then. Stop the passive aggressive behavior, get a back bone, make the mandate.
All this lip service really annoys me. I believe the reason they don't make the mandate is that they would have to grandfather already licensed RN's into the legislation and lose all that RN-BSN tuition revenue. So instead they decide to be passive aggressive and make threats to seasoned higher paid nurses about their jobs hoping they'll leave and they can save money. The CEO's are happy because they just cut tuition reimbursement and they KNOW a certain percentage of the high paid seasoned nurse will just leave. Done...budget decreased. I have heard this personally right out of the horses mouth.
I find it sad, frustrating, and embarrassing, and that NO ONE is willing to stand up for these VALUABLE seasoned nurses and are so willing to toss them and their contributions to the curb because they might not have taken statistics 30 years ago. I for one can't stand by quietly while these nurses are verbally degraded and marginalized. It is shameful that little to no regard is shown for their expertise and contributions to this "honorable" profession. I am appalled that there is essentially no one who will stand up for them. Those who do are called anti-education, anti intellectual and are "not supportive" of the "profession". I support education. I have my BSN. My daughter just started her BSN program. I have made it very clear to her, with the trend in nursing, the BSN is NOT her terminal degree.
I know it is shocking but at one time respect members and leaders were not college educated and they were able to move the profession forward. Sometimes I think we were better off then...we didn't bicker over a piece paper a few an english and math classes. We respect the seasoned nurses and we learned from them. Nurses were promoted because they were stellar NURSES and were leaders and mentors of their peers....instead of no bedside experience, thousands of dollars of debt and a few more college courses with a degree. They worked the trenches. They had been there done that.... I think they were better leaders coming from the trenches.
Yessss.... this propaganda has been chanted FOR YEARS...at no point however, was there ever an indication that an experienced nurse, after 26 years, at the bedside was going to be jobless and forced out of their jobs by new grads that had 4 more semesters of math, history, art, and english than the ASN/ADN. I guarantee, with a few exceptions, the seasoned nurse will out nurse the "BSN".
Yes, employers have every right to hire who they wish...I think it is a shame that we as a group are not standing up for our seasoned nurses and value what they bring to the table. "We" should be ashamed to allow the mistreatment those who have put in their time in this soul sucking profession. Just because they have the right to do as they wish....doesn't mean we should stand by quietly and watch our fellow nurses be bullied.
Sorry for the soap box rant....but just because it is being done...doesn't make it right.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Actually the NPs are being grandfathered into Doctorate and they are suppose to be obtaining Doctorate if they are new NPs, so the educational trap seems to only be haunting nurses??? How many letters after my name make me a good nurse-----only two or three. RN or LPN!!
I wonder how they would respond if they weren't grandfathered. Of course the nurses with a 2 year degree and diplomas were also told they would be grandfathered in....until they realized how much they could make on tuition.
You are correct I misspoke it is the BON that directly approves these programs and the ANA has strong influence on the standards. I stand corrected on the technicality. I generalized and I should know better than that when speaking with nurses... . My ASN program was NOT a community college degree or from the vo-tech. I went to a four year college, brick and mortar (of course because we didn't have computers back then ). I had a quality education that didn't deter me getting from management positions ALL with a ASN . I don't know about you but when I graduated, right around when you graduated, the diploma programs we just being phased out and the ASN programs were "new-ish". However, I am from the midwest....maybe it took longer to get there.
I am glad your program was informative for you. I graduated from a brick and mortar, well respected, 4 year college that emphasized that to be a Nurse Practitioner (BSN level then) or management it was going to require a more advanced degree. I managed to not get that degree until about 6 years ago, had a lustrous career in Senior management without the BSN. I agree 100% that the entry needs to be BSN from one point forward.
Alright nursing leaders....Make the decision and do it then. Stop the passive aggressive behavior, get a back bone, make the mandate.
All this lip service really annoys me. I believe the reason they don't make the mandate is that they would have to grandfather already licensed RN's into the legislation and lose all that RN-BSN tuition revenue. So instead they decide to be passive aggressive and make threats to seasoned higher paid nurses about their jobs hoping they'll leave and they can save money. The CEO's are happy because they just cut tuition reimbursement and they KNOW a certain percentage of the high paid seasoned nurse will just leave. Done...budget decreased. I have heard this personally right out of the horses mouth.
I find it sad, frustrating, and embarrassing, and that NO ONE is willing to stand up for these VALUABLE seasoned nurses and are so willing to toss them and their contributions to the curb because they might not have taken statistics 30 years ago. I for one can't stand by quietly while these nurses are verbally degraded and marginalized. It is shameful that little to no regard is shown for their expertise and contributions to this "honorable" profession. I am appalled that there is essentially no one who will stand up for them. Those who do are called anti-education, anti intellectual and are "not supportive" of the "profession". I support education. I have my BSN. My daughter just started her BSN program. I have made it very clear to her, with the trend in nursing, the BSN is NOT her terminal degree.
I know it is shocking but at one time respect members and leaders were not college educated and they were able to move the profession forward. Sometimes I think we were better off then...we didn't bicker over a piece paper a few an english and math classes. We respect the seasoned nurses and we learned from them. Nurses were promoted because they were stellar NURSES and were leaders and mentors of their peers....instead of no bedside experience, thousands of dollars of debt and a few more college courses with a degree. They worked the trenches. They had been there done that.... I think they were better leaders coming from the trenches.
Yessss.... this propaganda has been chanted FOR YEARS...at no point however, was there ever an indication that an experienced nurse, after 26 years, at the bedside was going to be jobless and forced out of their jobs by new grads that had 4 more semesters of math, history, art, and english than the ASN/ADN. I guarantee, with a few exceptions, the seasoned nurse will out nurse the "BSN".
Yes, employers have every right to hire who they wish...I think it is a shame that we as a group are not standing up for our seasoned nurses and value what they bring to the table. "We" should be ashamed to allow the mistreatment those who have put in their time in this soul sucking profession. Just because they have the right to do as they wish....doesn't mean we should stand by quietly and watch our fellow nurses be bullied.
Sorry for the soap box rant....but just because it is being done...doesn't make it right.
I completely agree with you that just because it's being done, that doesn't make it right. However, it seems to me that you are again confusing licensure with employment. Even if the entire nursing community were to get together as a group (for the first time ever ...), mandate the BSN as entry to practice and grandfather in all the current diploma- and ADN-prepared RNs (which is, of course, what would happen), that would still have no effect whatsoever on whether employers would want to hire (or keep) non-BSN RNs. They would still be entirely free to decline to hire, or get rid of, their non-BSN RNs.
And, again, I think it's really unrealistic to say that no one could have seen this coming and there was no warning. The rumblings have been going on for, literally, decades. In the early '90s, when I was in a BSN-completion program (of my own free will :)), a big chunk of our cohort were a bunch of the nurse managers from the local hospital (a decent hospital, but nothing special). They were all there because the administration of the hospital had just recently announced that the hospital was going to an BSN-minimum management model, and, by such-and-such date, they could either have a BSN (completed) or they could step down from their nurse manager positions (which many of them had been in, successfully, for many years). No exceptions, no extensions, no ifs, ands or buts. The ADN-prepared NMs were not happy about that (some of them were a really negative presence in the classes), but they all trotted down to the local state uni and signed up for the BSN-completion program because they wanted to keep their jobs.
Lots of nurses have had your experience, of having a long, successful career in nursing administration without a BSN, let alone a graduate degree. Many potential students have posted here about going for an ADN because their grandmother, who was an RN for 100 years andhad been the DON of a big, busy hospital with just a diploma, told them that they didn't need any more than an ADN and it would be silly to do more, and lots of us have responded that those days are over. Yes, it used to be possible to rise to the top of nursing administration in many hospitals with "just" a diplomaor ADN and years of solid clinical experience, but those days are long gone, and they ain't coming back. The people like that who still have their jobs are lucky, and I hope they'll be able to continue their careers to retirement, but that is becoming increasingly rare, and that scenario just isn't going to be possible going forward.
It's not just nursing -- there are probably lots of mid-level and maybe even some upper-level executives in other occupations who only have a high school diploma, and many years of experience in their chosen field, and have had a long and successful career. But times and expectations have changed, and that's not going to be possible going forward. As has been noted in the press repeatedly for decades, the BA/BS degree is the new high school diploma, the minimum credential to get a decent job and life. There have been reports in the press that McDonald's in some areas is requiring a BA/BS degree for potential employees. Again, whether that's right or wrong, or smart or dumb, if employers are requiring a baccalaureate degree to flip burgers, why on earth would anyone think that nurses could get away with having less than a baccalaureate degree?
Actually the NPs are being grandfathered into Doctrates and they are suppose to be obtaining Doctrates if they are new NPs, so the educational trap seems to only be haunting nurses??? How many letters after my name make me a good nurse-----only two or three. RN or LPN!!
Not necessarily true. Master's-prepared advanced practice nurses are being told that we will be grandfathered in (won't lose our existing licenses), but it remains to be seen how that will shake out in real life. We do know what happened when NP programs officially went from being certificate programs to being Master's programs. The states all switched to requiring MSNs for licensure, and existing certificate-prepared NPs were grandfathered in and maintained their licensure as NPs. However, when they wanted to move to another state, they found they were unable to get licensed in the new state because the requirement was now for an MSN, and the remaining certificate-prepared NPs found that they were trapped in their current state unless they wanted to just work as generalist RNs. There's currently no indication that any state is considering changing to requiring DNP for advanced practice licensure, but there's also no guarantee that won't happen in the future. There's also no guarantee that employers won't decide they only want to hire DNP-prepared advanced practice nurses.
. My ASN program was NOT a community college degree or from the vo-tech. I went to a four year college, brick and mortar (of course because we didn't have computers back then 
). I had a quality education that didn't deter me getting from management positions ALL with a ASN 
. I don't know about you but when I graduated, right around when you graduated, the diploma programs we just being phased out and the ASN programs were "new-ish". However, I am from the midwest....maybe it took longer to get there.
), mandate the BSN as entry to practice and grandfather in all the current diploma- and ADN-prepared RNs (which is, of course, what would happen), that would still have no effect whatsoever on whether employers would want to hire (or keep) non-BSN RNs. They would still be entirely free to decline to hire, or get rid of, their non-BSN RNs.
subee, MSN, CRNA
1 Article; 6,125 Posts
What we are seeing are the basic laws of evolution at work. Only the fittest survive. If you didn't see BSN requirement coming, then you haven't been keeping up with nursing. If you don't keep up with professional requirements, then you are culled from the herd. Nature and capitalism are equally cruel. It's not just nursing that feels secure in discarding senior employees - EVERYONE does it. It's YOUR job to stay relevant; no one else's because no one else can do it for you. That's a role of the professional - always peeking a little into the future so you can be prepared to keep up with changes. Change happens at a constantly increasing rate and it's hard
work to keep treading water fast enough, but that's what professionals have to do. There are plenty of jobs out there for people who don't have the wherewithall to keep up. They may even more attractive to some people. You want to make the most money for you time? You'll have to spend something on education.