After much hard work, dedication, and sacrifice I obtained my BSN RN in 2004. Today I walked out of an orientation at a major Raleigh, NC hospital because I was told why I asked why RN's could not proudly display their education and credentials "WE do not recognize titles here.There are no titles" I was outraged and hurt. In educating the orientation administrative person (she was not a nurse) I explained that having to meet strict criteria for certification and education levels are not a title! She looked annoyed. SO I left.
Education and credentials are not easily obtained. They are representations of a RN's commitment to his/her craft. They are indications of the sacrifice and hard work she/ he has put in to go the extra mile. I am in no way negating an ADN. ON the contrary, ADN's make just as much of a sacrifice (However...in all honesty.... you will never hear an ADN voicing concern about not being able to display her ADN...sorry if I have offended any ADN's but the truth is the truth!).
When I handed HR my resignation letter and explained why I am resigning after only 2 days of orientation she looked annoyed and asked : "What does it matter. All of you are RN's and you all do the same thing" I just looked at her and shook my head.
I cannot understand an organization that BANS your right to display your hard work. What right does that organization have?
Needless to say I left another hospital for a minor pay increase at this facility. I regret that decision. I told HR I would rather tolerate a few cents less and have the HARD EARNED RIGHT TO DIAPLY MY CREDNTIALS than to work for an organization who tells me I CAN NOT DISPLAY MY CREDENTIALS>
Shame on you Wake Med! You will never achieve magnet status if you continue to disregard the hard work of your RN's!
Specializes in Med Surg, Step Down, Telemetry, Geriatri.
We have choices.....I am confident in my abilites. We are nurses...we can do anything! As for walking off the job...I simply made a choice. I wrote my resignation and my reasons and professionally handed it to HR. I stood up for what I beleive in! BY the way....before I could get home good I had 2 phone calls for job offers and I begin a new job Monday "IF YOU DON'T STAND UP FOR SOMETHING YOU WILL FALL FOR ANYTHING!"
a RN is a RN and as leslie said , i agree 100% with her. i don't have BSN on my badge and neither do the nurses i work with. the hospital i work with pay according to years expirence , they don't care if you are a ADN or BSN, as long as you can sign RN after your name. you should be able to choose if you want to put BSN on your badge if you want. i've been a nurse so long degree means nothing to me just sign RN after your name...
the BSN and the ADN do the same job. In this day and age be grateful you have a job, roof over your head and your family has food on their plate.
i'd have on my badge what ever they want .. just pay me a decent days wages . nursing jobs are scarce these days.
My employer's position is that it is their badge, and they will dictate what is displayed; to that end, my position is as an RN and that is what my badge reads. The housekeeper, the phlebotomist and the CNO similarly list their job titles but not list their academic degrees nor certifications.
As for my BSN, MN, and certification, I receive a small pay premium for each. This, along with pride in myself for my achievements and the knowledge that I have gained are enough recognition.
Glad your area has a plethora of RN jobs to choose from! Many areas do not. For me, I wouldn't make it a deal breaker either. However, to the OP this is important so go for it. Good luck with your career. BTW I'm credentialled at six hospitals and all six have different credentials, letters on my badges.
I work at a Magnet facility and I have alphabet soup behind my name!! Does NOT make me a better nurse than any of my fellow nurses. I am a BSN working on my master's, and have a couple of certifications. Also, some nurses who have same exact credentials/certs as me have nothing but RN behind their name, it is our choice at our facility. I'd never quit a job over this, like other posts, I'd just wear pins that denote my specialties and ed level.
There certainly is passion in this thread. I agree with Leslie, find a job that requires a BSN as they will value your education more. This hospital was hiring RN's and they said so. Perhaps they wanted only RN on the badges to promote harmony, perhaps to save money on engraving, who knows? However I think to walk out on a job for that is extreme.
Oh and I know Robin on the first season of "Americas Next Top Model" said that quote "You better stand for something or you'll fall for anything", when they asked her to pose naked. She didn't pose, and she didn't win.
I'm not a nurse yet, but I am a lawyer and as proud as I am about my own title and accomplishments to date, I don't have a need to go around writing "JD" or "Esq" after my name everywhere I go (the only necessity would of course be on legal documents written on behalf of my clients, maybe on business cards that do not otherwise indicate I am an attorney or wherever there is a need to otherwise identify myself as a lawyer). I personally don't see the need to distinguish yourself as a BSN on a hospital credential such as a badge/ID. Seems to me as if you have some desire to be recognized as a "better" nurse in the workplace.
Certainly, I fully support identifying your BSN and certifications on business cards. Another poster mentioned the fact that there are pins that show ADN, BSN and even MSN achievement. As an alternative, I think these are a more appropriate display of your academic achievement with your credential if you are so inclined. On second thought, maybe certifications (i.e., CCRN, AOCN, etc.) would not be a problem on a badge provided they are used to identify specialty nurses where required. I'm not in any way devaluing the hard work you put in to achieve your BSN, because I have seen first-hand how hard my former college classmates worked to achieve the same. And here I am diving head-first into that same pool after what I have so far achieved.
As a patient, I'm certainly not going to look to see whether an RN is a BSN or an ADN - on that level, an RN is an RN and as long as he or she is qualified and committed to give me the best care possible, that is all that matters in my book. Frankly, the average patient does not go around asking nurses if they were an ADN or BSN. For that matter, they usually don't even know that there is more than one route to an RN.
When that day comes that I am privileged enough to place the letters "RN" on a hospital credential after my name, I will be happy to just have those two letters there. I won't be whining to have BSN or JD displayed along with those letters because in the hospital environment what matter is what I do as an RN, period. Of course, once I've earned respect as a floor nurse and begin to pursue work as a legal nurse consultant or nurse attorney or in risk management, my business cards (and resume/CV) will certainly require my full capabilities to be expressed and that is where they will proudly go.
IMHO, in these economic times your decision to resign a job for such a petty reason was at best a foolish one. Speaks volumes of your character and priorities. Sounds to me like your priority as a nurse is one of image and ranking when it should be caring for patients. Please remember why you chose this profession.
Callioter I am so sorry that you feel this way. Are you a BSN? Probably not. The grand scheme of things is that many of us have sacrificed so much to obtain our education. Do you understand what it takes to be credentialed? I am working on my credentials now and included are a certain number of hours in the particular field as well as specific criteria. What right does anyone have to not allow me to display it.
Wow.
Simba, I've been the higher education (post HS) route three complete turns now. Certs and board certifications in two professions. Not counting military education and certs. About 11 years of post HS formal education, so far.
THE BSN ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL. Sure the students have to apply themselves and be persistent. But it is no more impressive or demanding than many of the undergrad degrees out there. Especially the degrees in the hard sciences. Many of my second-degree classmates agreed that excepting the time demands and peculiar attitudes still held by some in nursing education, the BSN was intellectually far less demanding than much of the coursework they had done for other degrees.
My parents both had graduate and post grad degrees and certs. I don't remember ever seeing that displayed anywhere in their profession. I suspect you have no idea what a large number of the people you meet every day have higher education and certs, and it isn't displayed on their persons anywhere. In fact, it is rather peculiar to our profession that we think an attained degree (and an undergrad degree, at that) needs to be displayed on ID. I've often thought that the many many educated patients we have see this and wonder "why?" or "what the heck?"
I think the BSN is an excellent attainment; don't misread me. But in the overall realm of higher education it isn't that outstanding. It is one of many undergraduate degrees which are nearly the standard in an educated society. Many other clinical professions require a graduate degree just to practice. The School of Pharmacy near here only offers a PhD. for practicing pharmacists. Our daughter just got into PT school, and they don't offer a Master's any more - it is now a PhD. Docs are, well...docs. MD or DO. All this for entry level clinical care in those roles. And their clinical degrees don't contain anywhere near as high a percentage of courses with so little use. I refer to the courses that put the BS in BSN. They are close to half the requirements, and contribute little to providing better patient care.
Okay, I'll stop there. Probably little point to this, anyway. Done venting about our inflated sense of importance of our degrees.
(BTW, did you know that in many places physicians used to practice with just an undergraduate degree and were called Mr.?)
After much hard work, dedication, and sacrifice I obtained my BSN RN in 2004. Today I walked out of an orientation at a major Raleigh, NC hospital because I was told why I asked why RN's could not proudly display their education and credentials "WE do not recognize titles here.There are no titles" I was outraged and hurt. In educating the orientation administrative person (she was not a nurse) I explained that having to meet strict criteria for certification and education levels are not a title! She looked annoyed. SO I left.
Education and credentials are not easily obtained. They are representations of a RN's commitment to his/her craft. They are indications of the sacrifice and hard work she/ he has put in to go the extra mile. I am in no way negating an ADN. ON the contrary, ADN's make just as much of a sacrifice (However...in all honesty.... you will never hear an ADN voicing concern about not being able to display her ADN...sorry if I have offended any ADN's but the truth is the truth!).
When I handed HR my resignation letter and explained why I am resigning after only 2 days of orientation she looked annoyed and asked : "What does it matter. All of you are RN's and you all do the same thing" I just looked at her and shook my head.
I cannot understand an organization that BANS your right to display your hard work. What right does that organization have?
Needless to say I left another hospital for a minor pay increase at this facility. I regret that decision. I told HR I would rather tolerate a few cents less and have the HARD EARNED RIGHT TO DIAPLY MY CREDNTIALS than to work for an organization who tells me I CAN NOT DISPLAY MY CREDENTIALS>
Shame on you Wake Med! You will never achieve magnet status if you continue to disregard the hard work of your RN's!
Sandra BSN RN
OMG! I was wondering what happened to you today! This is Kim,the RN that say beside you yesterday at lunch. You are such a nice person and I really enjoyed meeting you. I am sorry that you left, you would have been a great asset to the company. I love WakeMed and feel they are an excellent hospital. If it makes you feel any better, They put "Nurse Fellow" on my badge. So I guess for as long as I am there, people will think I am a newbie even if I stay 10 years. But my only concern is, what if the other two hospitals refuse to put your credentials on your badge. I hope you don't quit those too. Sandra there are other ways to display your credentials. You could get a smaller badge to display your credentials or even get your uniform tops embroidered. Good Luck and I wish you all the best!
The fact that the OP walked out on her orientation says a lot more about her as a nurse and an employee than any string of initials after her name does.
Simba 2241 to become an RN you have to sucesfully pass the NCLEX exam , it is not necessary to obtain a BSN .
Your employer owns your name badge and they can decide, within the legal requirements of the state they operate in , what goes on it .
Whilst you can be proud of your achievement in gaining a BSN.,your reaction to not being able to put BSN on your badge and your comtemptious response to the posts of caliotter3 , does not creat a good impression of you .
Floor nurses will judge you upon your nursing care , not by the letters after your name .
barbyann
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