Change in BSN requirements

Nursing Students ADN/BSN

Published

I heard that North Dakota once required a BSN to practice. Can anyone tell me if this is true and why it didnt work out?

Quote:

Originally Posted by grannynurseFNP

Without intending to do so, you have just angered approximately 60% of the nurses, in this country...................................

Grannynurse :balloons:

Why does this bring out our anger instead of our problem solving skills. I do not see winner or losers...just registered nurses who must confront a professional issue involving education. What are we afraid will happen if our educational track become standardized. When can WE as a profession come together to find a professional solution? As long as this debate continues we will have CEO's who say silly things like "nurses should marry better to have better pensions".

I couldn't agree with you more. I just spent four hours, at USF library, researching journal articles on this topic. You would be surprised at what I have found out. And how much actual research has been done into this very topic.

Grannynurse :balloons:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
Quote:

Originally Posted by grannynurseFNP

Without intending to do so, you have just angered approximately 60% of the nurses, in this country...................................

Grannynurse :balloons:

Why does this bring out our anger instead of our problem solving skills. I do not see winner or losers...just registered nurses who must confront a professional issue involving education. What are we afraid will happen if our educational track become standardized. When can WE as a profession come together to find a professional solution? As long as this debate continues we will have CEO's who say silly things like "nurses should marry better to have better pensions".

Why does it bring out anger?? Well, other than being rude and insulting???

Being rude and insulting is the source of the anger. And no "problem solving" can cure rude and insulting.

If ND was able to get enough nurses with a BSN....with as long as the rule has been on the books, obviously the "BSN will flock here for the professionalism" theory failed. That particular state is not the most populous and it has an advantage in being close to Canada, where nurses are more likely to cross the border to work in the States and are required to have a Bachelor's. If it could not keep enough nurses with a BSN, then the chances are pretty low for the rest of the Country.

The ADN is frequently blamed for the low pay rate and the low prestige of Nursing. Sorry, guys, but it has to do with cleaning up bodily wastes, and other unpleasant physical tasks of nursing and corporate disregard for nurses.

As long as nurses clean up feces/vomit, get bitten by dementia patients, do tube feeds and draw blood, and wear a wash and where uniform, we will be looked down upon. And unfortunately, that is part of our job. The Public has difficulty seeing the "value" of that (as do many nurses that are reluctant to get their gloves dirty - the "That is the Aide's job" mentality).

Much like the stay at home mother/father who does one of the most important societal duties (and gets little credit for it) and the child care worker (who is responsible for a large part of OUR future), we are not valued because we care for the physical and psychological needs of the vulnerable. Our value cannot be easily quantified on a spread sheet. We do not pay well for those who take care of real people and their basic needs and we do not respect those that clean up &*$%. And it matters little whether we have a high school degree or a Masters, as long as the public sees us as someone who cleans their bottoms.

If there was justice in the "Degree theory", teachers would be well paid and treated well by the Public (they are not), Social workers would not be overworked and underpaid and we would require nursery school personnel to have a Masters and pay them accordingly. Families would have difficulty affording day care, and parents/people would value childcare more as a good and responsible task (as it should be).

As long as nurses don't sit at a desk, doing clean and tidy work, on a nine to five with a one hour break, the career field will be at a disadvantage at attracting others due to "prestige". And making it harder for the working class to enter this very "working class" field is not going to help.

Few want to get a Bachelor's to clean up poop. Heck, my own parents hated the idea of me getting any college degree to clean up poop. Unfortunately, it is a job requirement.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Why does it bring out anger?? Well, other than being rude and insulting???

Being rude and insulting is the source of the anger. And no "problem solving" can cure rude and insulting.

If ND was able to get enough nurses with a BSN....with as long as the rule has been on the books, obviously the "BSN will flock here for the professionalism" theory failed. That particular state is not the most populous and it has an advantage in being close to Canada, where nurses are more likely to cross the border to work in the States and are required to have a Bachelor's. If it could not keep enough nurses with a BSN, then the chances are pretty low for the rest of the Country.

The ADN is frequently blamed for the low pay rate and the low prestige of Nursing. Sorry, guys, but it has to do with cleaning up bodily wastes, and other unpleasant physical tasks of nursing and corporate disregard for nurses.

As long as nurses clean up feces/vomit, get bitten by dementia patients, do tube feeds and draw blood, and wear a wash and where uniform, we will be looked down upon. And unfortunately, that is part of our job. The Public has difficulty seeing the "value" of that (as do many nurses that are reluctant to get their gloves dirty - the "That is the Aide's job" mentality).

Much like the stay at home mother/father who does one of the most important societal duties (and gets little credit for it) and the child care worker (who is responsible for a large part of OUR future), we are not valued because we care for the physical and psychological needs of the vulnerable. Our value cannot be easily quantified on a spread sheet. We do not pay well for those who take care of real people and their basic needs and we do not respect those that clean up &*$%. And it matters little whether we have a high school degree or a Masters, as long as the public sees us as someone who cleans their bottoms.

If there was justice in the "Degree theory", teachers would be well paid and treated well by the Public (they are not), Social workers would not be overworked and underpaid and we would require nursery school personnel to have a Masters and pay them accordingly. Families would have difficulty affording day care, and parents/people would value childcare more as a good and responsible task (as it should be).

As long as nurses don't sit at a desk, doing clean and tidy work, on a nine to five with a one hour break, the career field will be at a disadvantage at attracting others due to "prestige". And making it harder for the working class to enter this very "working class" field is not going to help.

Few want to get a Bachelor's to clean up poop. Heck, my own parents hated the idea of me getting any college degree to clean up poop. Unfortunately, it is a job requirement.

Actually, the journal articles and research I found last night, does not support your view. I would be happy to share what I have found, if anyone is interested in research :)

Grannynurse :balloons:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Actually, the journal articles and research I found last night, does not support your view. I would be happy to share what I have found, if anyone is interested in research :)

Grannynurse :balloons:

I'm always interested in research...so I would appreciate the links....

Kathryn

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I am payed for my critical thinking skills. The fact that I clean "poop" is... Langnaippe (a little extra bonus)

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I'm always interested in research...so I would appreciate the links....

Kathryn

Can't provide you with the links but I can provide the citations.

Grannynurse :balloons:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Can't provide you with the links but I can provide the citations.

Grannynurse :balloons:

Post away...

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I believe you can be a great nurse at any level and most nurses with the many years of experience, as you mentioned, will always be better than a new nurse no matter the difference in education. However, I do think the profession of nursing will advance as the educational requirements do. Look at other professions, very few with our level if responsiblity allow such minimal education. In fact most require a masters degree (social work, physical therapy, etc.) This may or may not actually make nurses better. Most people who argue this topic mean no disrespect to differently educated nurses, they only want to see the profession advance. The reason I started this thread is because I was working on a thesis about the topic and after much research and even more writing it is clearly apparent the advance is long awaited.

:angryfire I just graduated from the Dakota Practical Nursing Program at Williston State College and I have never been more pleased with the "technical" education I received. I am quite offended by your "step backward" comment and I can tell you now, compared to the BSN RN students that we shared the floor with my first year of school, we blew them out of the water. This meaning: our nursing skills, assertiveness, communications skills, and our great attitudes and our "jump right in" confidence. Our charting skills were better and our spelling and writing - better! We understood our terminology much better.

We had a few RN students asking us for help with their care plans on one of the floors we had clinicals on! We gladly helped them out and enjoyed working side by side with them but we really knew our stuff and I am proud to say I am a graduate LPN.

There are many diploma nurses out there that have been around a LOOONNG time, can you say the same for them? Does all that extra time taking theory and professional development really improve your "technical nursing skills" that we all have to learn, no matter what route you pursue?

I wondered when I read your post if you were a "new" RN. You are one year in, just as I thought. I hope your attitude changes someday and I hope you never become a clinical instructor because that is just the type of attitude that is detrimental to nursing morale, whether you are and LPN or an RN. Shame on you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Totally agree! I have an ADN and a BA in another field and am working toward my BSN starting this fall, I feel it is the standard nurses should strive for. I understand not everyone has the time or money to devote to a BSN program originally but I think it's important to continue.

As far as passing boards, our school's pass rate is consistently 95% or higher every year, no exceptions. I am disturbed by people who flunk boards more than once. That tells me something is wrong either with the students themselves or the education/preparation they received. I felt VERY ready to take boards and breezed through them in about 60 minutes - honestly I felt our 4th semester final was far more difficult than NCLEX!

And our school gave you one chance to flunk/drop out of a semester for ANY reason whether it be illness, low grades whatever, after the second time you could not come back. Period. Yes, it was harsh but it kept people who were serious and really working hard.

Melissa

Not a criticism at all, but just a point of history -- actually, up until fairly recently (the last 15 or so years -- to me, that's recent :chuckle ) the MSW was considered the entry level into social work, and all social workers had MSWs. No one expected to get a job in social work with just a BSW; it was understood that the only thing a BSW prepared you for was to get into a graduate program in social work. The same was true in psychology; when you said, "psychologist," everyone understood that you meant someone with a PhD (because no one else bothered to call themselves a psychologist) ... The change was part of the overall push in healthcare to get the job done (or, at least, pretend to get the job done) as cheaply as possible -- organizations started hiring people with lesser qualifications/education because they could pay them less -- which, IMHO, as resulted in a general "watering down" of standards in many areas of healthcare. I hope that trend may be starting to reverse itself.

I also agree that, for all the talk in nursing about us wanting to be taken seriously as professionals, v. few people want to talk about the "900 pound elephant in the living room" (as we say in the substance abuse tx biz ...) -- there is no other "profession" (or any occupation with aspirations of being taken seriously as a profession) for which a community college degree is the entry level ... I'm not saying I support making the BSN the entry level across the board, but the reality is that it is just delusional of the nursing profession to expect that we would be taken seriously as peers by real professions under the present circumstances.

I'm not a big fan of current BSN education in nursing; I've been involved in recent years in several different ADN and BSN programs, either as a full-time faculty member or an adjunct/guest instructor, and, from what I've seen, I seriously worry for the future of nursing ... My diploma school did a much better job back in the Dark Ages (actually, it was the early '80s) of preparing me to function competently as a entry-level Registered Nurse, including critical thinking skills, ethics, legal issues, and "professionalism," than any of the programs I've had experience with since then. (Of course, I realize there were plenty of poor quality diploma programs around in the old days, and I was mostly lucky to have found myself in a really good school.)

And what's up with so many people flunking boards nowadays?? My state BON newsletter recently reported that several good, solid, respectable nursing programs (at least, I thought they were :uhoh21: ) in my state are on probation with the board because they have NCLEX pass rates of 70%, 67%, 56%??? Clearly, somethin' ain't right ... It wasn't that long ago that schools (not to mention the BON) considered it a crisis if their pass rate dropped below the high 90s (%) -- at my school, if the rate had ever dropped below 99% or 98% (once in a while, one of the graduates wouldn't pass), the faculty would have all committed ritual seppuku out on the front lawn to atone for their (obvious) failings ... Now, taking the boards multiple times is apparently considered some sort of "rite of passage," and the whole thing seems to work like some weird lottery (as a poster on another thead noted recently) -- eventually, you get lucky ... (Please note that I blame the schools for this phenomenon much more than the students -- I'm not crticizing students for this).

I apologize for sounding like one of those bitter old battleaxes (I always wince when I do, because, when I was a student, I always swore that I would never be one of those nurses who says, "Back when I was a student ...") I certainly don't claim to have all (or any!) of the answers. But it does seem to me that we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in several different aspects of nursing, and I believe nursing education is one of those areas. I don't blame any particular individual(s) or group for this, but it seems like there's something seriously wrong with the system -- but we're all too busy being warm and caring and supportive of everyone to really take a objective look at what's going on with nursing and its future. I hope I'm not too far off-topic, and I apologize if I am.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Yes this is true. The law was changed last year though.

I now live in Indiana but went to nursing school in ND.

I can see why the BSN entry level did not work out. First off, there were very few BSN programs in state prior to the law taking effect in the early 1980's. Secondly, many nurses had to travel quite a distance in order to get BSN. From what I understood about law was that you could practice in state with your RN license provided you had graduated prior to law taking effect. Any nurse coming from out of state with ASN or Diploma had 5 years to take BSN courses.

The LPN program was lenghtened to 2 years. The same went for out of state nurses wanting to practice with LPN.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

This is an issue that won't be settled in our lifetime. I know when my husband was looking at an assignment in ND back in the 90's, I told him I didn't want to go there because of the BSN only requirement. I think we need to unite together and appreciate our differences.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

If there was justice in the "Degree theory", teachers would be well paid and treated well by the Public (they are not), Social workers would not be overworked and underpaid and we would require nursery school personnel to have a Masters and pay them accordingly. Families would have difficulty affording day care, and parents/people would value childcare more as a good and responsible task (as it should be).

As long as nurses don't sit at a desk, doing clean and tidy work, on a nine to five with a one hour break, the career field will be at a disadvantage at attracting others due to "prestige". And making it harder for the working class to enter this very "working class" field is not going to help.

Few want to get a Bachelor's to clean up poop.

Great post!

Every time I read a thread on this subject someone always uses teachers as an example of how nurses all having BSN's would make us more respected and "professional."

Teaching, now there's a highly valued and respected profession, along with the pay to reflect it's pretigious status.

I had two friends when I lived in Dallas that were both Dallas high school teachers and both were disgusted, but not really surprised, that I made $10,000 a year more than they did and I was an LVN then!

And this was straight pay as a staff, not agency or any overtime involved.

They felt insulted that someone with my mere "technical" education, I mean training, (as they believed that anyone not educated in a 4 year university merely receives training, not education) was getting paid more than they were.

Then there's always the comparison to nurses with the other health care professionals that require bachelor's or master's degrees for entry.

I find it hard to understand how any nurses honestly believe that Physical/Occupational therapists or Social Workers, by virtue of their educational requirements, are more respected in any hospital than we are.

How many nurses have you all run across lately that are leaving nursing and going back to school to become social workers, occupational therapists, or teachers for that matter?

Many nurses are going back to school so obviously educational access is not the issue, most are not leaving the profession for other more "respectable" fields.

LVN's are becoming RN's and BSN's are becoming NP's and CRNA's for obvious reasons: better pay, more career options, etc.

but I still have yet to meet a nurse who is going back to school to become as respected as a teacher or social worker.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment