CMA to RN???

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I am a Certified Medical Assistant with 10 years experience and an AS in liberal arts from Excelsior, along with many other certificates. I am looking to eventually get my RN, but keep hitting brick walls at every school I try. Of course, there is a ton of controversy about CMA's vs. LPN's and I am not here to dicuss that. I cannot find a school that will accept the CMA credential and let me finish a nursing program without starting from scratch, basically saying I have no clinical experience/education which is crazy! The frustrating thing for me is that I have as much experience if not more than my friends who are nurses. The job I have now is the same exact one as an RN had for 20 years. I was also thinking of trying to get an LPN by equivalency. I was wondering if there is anybody out there in my situation?

Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.

MA is skill-based, whereas LPN/RN school is not only the skills, but theory. The why behind the how. This is why you can't directly transfer with credit into an RN program.

Some RN's will argue that LPN is also only skill-based, but after the many looonnnng nights in PN school of sweating over every tiny detail of a nursing care plan for something as simple as constipation, I beg to differ.

MA programs also cover a lot of administrative duties - billing/coding, office management, etc. Stuff that, for the most part, have nothing to do with a nurse's duties in most (non-doctor's office) clinical settings.

I see a lot of posts on here where MA's complain that they are "just as good as LPN's/RN's" and "can do anything the LPN/RN does, but for half the pay".

Guess what? Tough. The nurses went to school for the letters behind their name and their licenses, took the NCLEX, and they get paid for it. There are plenty of Nurse Practitioners that are just as good as MD's, can do anything the MD can do (depending on the state), but for half the pay or worse. So what?

If you want to be paid what the RN makes, go through the hell the RN went through.

Sorry for being so callous about it. I used to have the "just as good as an RN" syndrome, but I got tired of complaining about it and signed up for RN school.

As an aside, I just looked up the clock hour requirements of MA schools, and what I found ranged anywhere from 700-1300 clock hours. My PN program was 1920 clock hours. Food for thought.

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Specializes in Hospice,LTC,Pacu,Regulatory,Operating room.

Hello,

I am not going to bash any MA's out there because i was one for many years. I was even the chairperson of college who trained diploma and AS degree Ma's. I will say this, I am a soon to be a graduate of a Nursing program and nursing is totally different from Medical assisting. The careplanning, the implementation,the nursing diagnosis along with many other modalities is what sets Nurses apart from Medical assisting. A nurse is also a person who isnt scared to learn new info and doesnt feel that they know everything. You have a arts degree which means you need to take more sciences. Also keep in mind if a nurse wants to be a Dr. she has to take upper level pharmacology and Anatomy and Physiology and ect. I have two Bs's and i am proud to say that i have been trained as a nurse. If it is your passion to be an LPN or an RN you are willing to sacrifice and wil be pleasantly surprised when you find that you learned something new.

Good luck to you.

Ps. we had our Ma's challenge the LPN boards just to see how they would do and around 90% failed due to no knowledge in the nursing care modality.

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I am starting school to become a CMA next month. At the orientation - the speaker from Boston Reed College who is also a nurse (she is now a teacher due to a back injury) talked about there was a bridge from a CMA to RN. I started thinking that after my CMA training then that's what I would do. So go online and check out Boston Reed College. I'm going to get more information about a bridge to an RN myself since a lot of people are saying that you'll have to start from scratch.

:yeah:

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Specializes in Hospice,LTC,Pacu,Regulatory,Operating room.
I am starting school to become a CMA next month. At the orientation - the speaker from Boston Reed College who is also a nurse (she is now a teacher due to a back injury) talked about there was a bridge from a CMA to RN. I started thinking that after my CMA training then that's what I would do. So go online and check out Boston Reed College. I'm going to get more information about a bridge to an RN myself since a lot of people are saying that you'll have to start from scratch.

:yeah:

please be sure what you are getting into. check the state boards as i know there is no such program that is approved by the nursing boards in any state.

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Specializes in L&D, Maternal Fetal Medicine, LTC.

This may be very insignificant, but Im a little leery of any school whose website doesnt end in ".edu". This school's website seems to be a ".com" and doesnt seem well organized at all. I would definitely do some investigating

Another question I would pose to you---if you intend on going on for your RN---why have you chosen to go to school to become a CMA and not an LPN. Im not sure about the schools in your area, but the MA program at the school I went to was just as long as the LPN program. Yes, it costs a little more, but it will be alot easier to transition from LPN to RN, than CMA to RN. I wish you luck in whatever your decision is.

Felicia

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Specializes in Emergency, Case Management, Informatics.

http://www.bostonreed.com/programs/faq.html

# 3. Is Boston Reed an accredited school?

# We are not required to be.

LOL. Nice.

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Specializes in Hospice,LTC,Pacu,Regulatory,Operating room.

That is scary as hell!!!!

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This may be very insignificant, but Im a little leery of any school whose website doesnt end in ".edu". This school's website seems to be a ".com" and doesnt seem well organized at all. I would definitely do some investigating.

I'm also v. suspicious of any "school" that doesn't qualify for federal student aid.

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Thanks for all the replys. I have considered a different school. A accredited school of nursing to become a LPN or RN instead of a CMA. Not to waste time on the CMA. I have a question to anyone. If I already have a bad back is this a career I should be considering or should I choose something else in the healthcare field that makes a decent living? I'd appreciate any advice before I plunge into something that I may not be able to do.

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What does your doctor recommend? Do you get around ok now as it is? Eventually you could work yourself into desk jobs or work in home health taking care of infants or small children. Until you get into something that you can control your exposure to back injuries you would have to be extra careful. Never do anything without someone to assist, or get someone else to move the patient for you in return for you doing something for them. These things can be negotiated and planned for. You have to do a lot of hard thinking on this yourself. It is not impossible, but you have to be in charge of keeping in mind what you can and cannot do.

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.
Thanks for all the replys. I have considered a different school. A accredited school of nursing to become a LPN or RN instead of a CMA. Not to waste time on the CMA. I have a question to anyone. If I already have a bad back is this a career I should be considering or should I choose something else in the healthcare field that makes a decent living? I'd appreciate any advice before I plunge into something that I may not be able to do.

In my area LPN/LVN all work in LTC, most LVNs in hospitals are only there because they have been there a long time but will be replaced with RNs when they leave. TLCs are the best place to hurt your back.

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Thank you for your advice. Actually my doctor seems to think that I have arthrits in my spine and I am doing exercises that is helping. I will remember that - because I sometimes think that I can do it all or won't ask for help. So I could ask someone to help in return I could do something to help another worker.

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