Degree Vs Diploma!

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Jul 10, 2007

In my opinion it has been suffering for years ever since p2000 came in-having it a degree only professional wont make a huge difference apart from limiting who can enter the profession.

expatnurse · Jul 11, 2007

I agree with the above statement. It doesn't matter if you go all degree or not if the required information needed to be a safe nurse is not there. All it does is limit and place more obstacles in the way and even less people will become nurses. In my view they need to exam what they lost in the education training of the nurses when project 2000 came into being.

ZippyGBR, BSN, RN · Jul 12, 2007

Hi all,
Was just wondering what everyone thought of the prospect of the nursing profession going completely degree led by 2010...
Do u think that the quality of bedside care will suffer?

I doubt it - it will mainly be changing marking criteria for academic work - a far smaller jump than from traditional training to current education and preparation for practice

I don't see many students who have the bare minimum qualifications for entry - most have some NQF 3 qualifications and a whole mix of A levles, AVCE/GNVQ or NVQ

ZippyGBR, BSN, RN · Jul 12, 2007

In my opinion it has been suffering for years ever since p2000 came in-having it a degree only professional wont make a huge difference apart from limiting who can enter the profession.

so someone who isn't capable of gaining an NQF level 3 qualification is suitable to train/ educate as a health Professional?

sorry this is utter rubbish ... most of the people ihave met in Nursing who entered whether training or pre-registration education are fully capapble of getting NQF3 or 4 ( or 5 or 6) qualifications as can be illustrated by the amount of traditionally trained RNs who now have HE qualifications and the very fact that to be able to complete HE based preparation for practice you have to be able to work at DipHE level

failures in clinical practice of Students are primarily down to poor placement experience ... some students won't cut it what ever happens - what was the droip out rate for traditional training?

Some HEIs need to rethink how they express what supernumerary status means

karenG · Jul 13, 2007

I'm a traditionally trained (oh i like that phrase!) nurse.. went into training with only 8 'o' levels.. and I'm doing a masters degree.. but to be honest the academic stuff isnt what makes a good nurse.. its having a huge dollop of common sense and the ablility to roll your sleeves up!

the students i meet today (and huge generalisations here so sorry) tend to be bright - maybe- but on whole seem interested in.. not sure what!! they ask truly stupid questions of us in primary care (maybe primary care is just not mentioned in training), they have appalling communications skills and no listening skills. my latest student patiently asked a man about his diet. he told he was a vegetarian.. and got a lecture on not eating too much meat and the need to eat vegetables!!

the training needs to go back to having a large element of clinical practice and (just to be contraversal) the students need to work! not to be suppernumary. communication skills are learnt by talking to patients. best ward sister i ever worked with would do a back round once a day to talk to her patients and check how they were. and dont get me started on the value of back rounds!

I think nursing is moving away from nursing in its attempt to become recognised as a profession. I see patients discharged with pressure sores and foot drop.. leg ulcers that havent been dressed because they were on the wrong ward.. what happened to basic nursing care

so make the training university based if you must but add in a huge practice based component- and make the students work!

drop-out rates were mentioned.... I started in a group of 32 and 30 of us finished. those that left, left at 18mths. it was known as the 18mth hump and if you got past that, you usually stayed and survived to go to terrorise more students! by the time i was a third year, I was running a ward.. and nearly 30yrs I am still here.. only now I am a nurse practitioner and clinical practice teacher working in general practice.

getting off soap box now and donning flame proof jacket!

Karen

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2007

so someone who isn't capable of gaining an NQF level 3 qualification is suitable to train/ educateas a health Professional?
sorry this is utter rubbish ...

Please refrain from calling my opinion rubbish, personnal attacks will not be tolerated-You can have a difference of opionon from members but it is not acceptable to personalise your attack. Please read TOS

ZippyGBR, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2007

Please refrain from calling my opinion rubbish, personnal attacks will not be tolerated-You can have a difference of opionon from members but it is not acceptable to personalise your attack. Please read TOS

given the number of personalised attacks made against people becasue they don't fit the percieved correct mould for being a nurse , which sadly in the UK is a white, female traditionally trained nurse ... i think being told that your opinion ( unsupported by the way with evidence ) is considered rubbish is not really a personal attack...

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2007

given the number of personalised attacks made against people becasue they don't fit the percieved correct mould for being a nurse , which sadly in the UK is a white, female traditionally trained nurse ... i think being told that your opinion ( unsupported by the way with evidence ) is considered rubbish is not really a personal attack...

Sorry I miss the connection between saying I think that P2000 was the cause of the detioration of nurse training and a percieved mould of a nurse in the UK.

If I thought I had to justify my opinion I am sure I could send you my dissertation of 12000 words and have you critque it.

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2007

In my opinion it has been suffering for years ever since p2000 came in-having it a degree only professional wont make a huge difference apart from limiting who can enter the profession.

For those who are interested or offended by the above posting-It simply means that by changing entry qualifications to Nursing it MAY limit some potential nurses from entering the profession, as some people are not as academically qualified as others.

Oh yes in my opinion after 18 years in the profession I have met the most fabulous nurses who had limited qualifications and I have met absolutly useless nurses with master degrees. I really couldnt care less what sexuality, sex, colour, religious affiliation or political views nurses have as long as they care and do their job with competance

ZippyGBR, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2007

I'm a traditionally trained (oh i like that phrase!) nurse.. went into training with only 8 'o' levels.. and I'm doing a masters degree.. but to be honest the academic stuff isnt what makes a good nurse.. its having a huge dollop of common sense and the ablility to roll your sleeves up!

ah the finest claire rayner rhetoric, hmm, luvvie, ... placing nursing firmly back into the past whenre kissing orifices and mopping doctor's brow were the order of the day...

the students i meet today (and huge generalisations here so sorry) tend to be bright - maybe- but on whole seem interested in.. not sure what!! they ask truly stupid questions of us in primary care (maybe primary care is just not mentioned in training),

define truely stupid questions?

also isn't the stupid question the one that isn't asked ...?

primary is a significant proprition of Nursing practice, although not all HEIs have a fair and representative balance of different areas of clinicla practiceamong their teaching staff

they have appalling communications skills and no listening skills. my latest student patiently asked a man about his diet. he told he was a vegetarian.. and got a lecture on not eating too much meat and the need to eat vegetables!!

bizarre, but then again i've heard some very bizarre conservations between patients and traditionally trained Nurses ...

the training needs to go back to having a large element of clinical practice

2300 hours is a substantial amount of time in clinical practice especially when there is theprotection from being used as an NA that supernumerary status brings

and (just to be contraversal) the students need to work! not to be suppernumary.

Supernumerary status is to protect the learning environment not to prevent work ... the primary purposes of supernumerary status as was explained to us when we started was to allow students to be able to turn round and say "I want to do X to benefit my learning " not to get out of doing nursing work when there was nursing work to be done...

there was and in some places remains a tendancy for certain people to attempt to use junior students as pairs of hands to do NA tasks ...

As a senior student, across most of my final year i expected and it was expected of us by the HEI that unless we had got something planned that we would be taking a reasonable patient load supported by an experienced RN or sharing a full patient load with an RN...

communication skills are learnt by talking to patients. best ward sister i ever worked with would do a back round once a day to talk to her patients and check how they were. and dont get me started on the value of back rounds!
I think nursing is moving away from nursing in its attempt to become recognised as a profession.

Quite frankly i think that thisis a very biased view of nursing and a very blinkered view of what being a patient advocate is about

I see patients discharged with pressure sores and foot drop.. leg ulcers that havent been dressed because they were on the wrong ward.. what happened to basic nursing care

Not enough staff full stop given the acuity of the current general ward workload - i work on an Acute assessment area it;s it's quite common to find that 4 of your 7ot 8 patients are very dependent or due to critical care bed pressures you have a HDU patient or 2 and the balance of your normall allocation...

looking at the other clinical areas in the trust i work for the there are no easy wards ) elective plastics / head and neck comes closest)

so make the training university based if you must but add in a huge practice based component- and make the students work!

Larger than the 2300 hours currently required?

drop-out rates were mentioned.... I started in a group of 32 and 30 of us finished. those that left, left at 18mths. it was known as the 18mth hump and if you got past that, you usually stayed and survived to go to terrorise more students! by the time i was a third year, I was running a ward.. and nearly 30yrs I am still here.. only now I am a nurse practitioner and clinical practice teacher working in general practice.

ok so this is now 9- 6 years ago or our sub group of 30 - 20+ finished on time , a couple finished within 3 months of planned completion date ( making up time lost for sickness or had to repeat placements ) a couple more were back schooled and subsequently qualified either 6 or 12 months later, one student had to leave due to visa/ work permit problems problems and a couple dropped out ...

karenG · Jul 13, 2007

For those who are interested or offended by the above posting-It simply means that by changing entry qualifications to Nursing it MAY limit some potential nurses from entering the profession, as some people are not as academically qualified as others.
Oh yes in my opinion after 18 years in the profession I have met the most fabulous nurses who had limited qualifications and I have met absolutly useless nurses with master degrees. I really couldnt care less what sexuality, sex, colour, religious affiliation or political views nurses have as long as they care and do their job with competance

I agree... I think I am good nurse but its unlikely I would be accepted for training with the qualificatios I started out with... despite this, I managed to qualify.. and have gone to do more exams than i care to remember!!

to be honest, I too have met some terrible nurses who look stunning academically.. but cant hack it in the real world. And therein lies the problem.. the emphaisis on academia means the students of today have no real idea of what goes on on the wards.. at least when i trained, you were on the ward and part of the team and expected to pull your weight within 8 weeks of starting training. you knew very quickly if you were going to enjoy it! oh the joys of being a first warder and being sent for a long wait....or to theatre for fallopian tubes.. or being asked to wash the sputum pots....!

Karen