Do Nurses Need Chemistry Education?

[Dr. O]

I am the chair of the department of Math & Natural Sciences that currently teaches our college's nursing students chemistry (BSN). The chemistry course is a total of 6 credit hours (1.5 general chemistry, 1.5 organic chemistry, 2 biochemistry, 1 combination laboratory). This chemistry requirement is significantly less than our students that pursue a physician's assistant degree, or even some education majors that want to teach at the elementary level. While reading the suggested courses for taking nursing boards, these three chemistry disciplines are listed. It is also my understanding that achieving a Bachelors degree could lead to the pursuit of becoming a nurse practitioner. It concerns me that our college may decide to remove chemistry from their curriculum; it concerns me more that one of their arguments is that other local four-year colleges are also dropping the requirement. I would love to hear any comments you may have....

[LauraLou]

We were not required to take chemistry for the ADN program, but I took a semester of Chem with the thought of getting a BSN someday. To be honest, the chemistry I learned in my A&P and Micro classes was much more useful than the semester of Intro Chem.

In Intro Chem we learned a lot about the density of gases, s-p-d-f orbitals and memorized the periodic table, none of which was very useful for nursing. In A&P and Micro, we learned about chemistry as it related to human biology.

Perhaps if a chemistry class is designed strictly for nursing students it would be more relevant, but a general chemistry class didn't help me much.

[night owl]

I think they need to do away with the Chemistry and start a class on the "Chemistry of staff assignment scheduling." Maybe alittle of how it's done without any people moaning and groaning where they have to work, or how to handle the moaner and the groaner night after night after night! :chuckle

[Sari_noel]

In the program I'm in we had 4 hour lecture, 3 hour lab for a pre-req, at the time I hated the class(got an A somehow??) I understand why I need a basic knowledge of chem, but if it would have been directed more at the medical aspect it would have been more useful, I don't think doing a ton of experiments with water and heat really taught me anything I couldn't have gotten from phys.

[PMHNP10]

I am going back and forth on this question and still don't know that chemistry was all that important for me. I happened to get a minor in it, so I had a pretty firm understanding. The general chemistry I had was largely math based--calculating titrations, pH, pOH, Ka, Kb, scientific formulas, lewis dot formulas, radiation chem, etc that was supposed to be useful for taking the MCAT. About the only thing I can for sure say it helped me with was drug calculations, but more so for the math part of it than the chemical part of it. On the other hand, chemistry is everything. Without the lil ole atom we have nothing...in fact, we aren't we. So suffice it to say, chem is important. I also had a few hrs of physics and that seems like a rediculous decision to drop chem in favor of physics. All you need to know is linear momentum...2 cars collide, you will be seeing them in the ER real soon. I don't care about what vectors are involved. :-)

[Agnus]

I believe chemistry is crutial to nursing. It is the foundation. Without it many clinical judgements that I must make would not be based on sound science nor would I have an understanding of how to make those decisions.

Chemistry is the how and why behind everthing in the body. I for one need to understand the how and why to do my job. Removing chemistry would set us back to being handmadens. We would not have the knowlege base needed to make the kinds of clinical decisions that nurses make today. We would have to have decisions made for us.

I understand a little, about the need for schools to cut certain things in the nursing corriculum. I had taken nutrition but my school did not require it. I asked why. I also asked why they were cramming a 3 semester hour course of pharmacology into 2 hours. The answer was that they were only allowed to have so many credits required for an AS degree and they had to cut some things to make that requirement.

There was no question that the faculty and the dept head agreed that Pharmacology need to be at least 3 if not 4 semester hours and they agreed that we needed nutrition. Unfortunatlely the rules were, only so many semester hours could be required of a student.

So I understand some decisions are needed to meet rules and budgets.

I think we need to revamp the nursing programs all together and instead of trying to cram so much info into so few hours we shoud consider redoing some of these rules that apply to other programs and create an exception for nursing, or to expand the nursing to be another type of degree program.

A speech therapist told me that to practice she must have no less than a masters degree. Maybe we need to do something simular with nursing. God knows we have the volume and quality of knowlege of those with higher degrees (in other professions) why not give us the credit.

If something must be cut I would be very opposed to it being something so fondational as Chemistry especially in a BS program.

[grouchy]

My guess is that your school is considering dropping the chem requirements because many students probably fail chem and leave the nursing program.

I think the ideal solution would be to change the way chem is taught. For example, I went to a large state university, where the first semester of chem functioned as a "weeder" course for many majors, including nursing, pre-med, engineering, etc. The lecture part of the class had 600 students and was conducted by a full professor whose main interest was teaching graduate students, and performing research. The labs had 30 students apiece, and were run by grad students. Most of the grad students were not able to communicate fluently in English. The labs were also set up and graded in such a way that it was very easy to flunk them. Each lab involved a new technique. If you messed up, just a little bit, and, say "overcooked" the unknown you were trying to identify, you would have bad data to put into the equations used to identify the unknown. No credit was given for working the equations correctly.

This used to really steam me. I like to cook, and I think of cooking as being similar to doing a chem experiment in some ways. If you've ever tried to make a pie crust, you know how hard it is to get it exactly right the first time. It doesn't seem odd to me that you might have to do an experiment several times, before you can execute it without any technical flaws. When the lab teacher has 30 people to monitor, and, often, doesn't speak English fluently, you don't even have a backup. I remember offering to come back and repeat the lab with the next lab section, and being told that was not allowed. So, to return to the cooking analogy, it was as if my pie crust was burnt around the edges, or a little misshapen, then I would automatically flunk that week's cooking lab, because of the all or nothing grading system.

I realize this has not answered your original question about how relevant chemistry is to nursing. I believe it is very relevant, but nursing students could benefit from courses that are more user-friendly, and which include more real-life examples of that relevance incorporated into the lectures. I'm advocating for taking a closer look at the way chemistry is actually taught in your institution, and considering revamping it, if necessary, rather than just dropping it.

I thank you for considering our opinions. Has your school also considered surveying students and alumni?

[coffeejavule]

Ah .. crap. =/ I am going to look into taking a class or two of chemistry I guess than. After having read this post I'm assuming it'd be a good idea.

When I talked to the Admissions Rep at my school he told me I could replace the chemistry with other math/science courses/classes if I didn't want to take chemistry. Maybe I shouldn't avoid chemistry than? Blah, heh.

I'll have to take the first one as a very basic though becuase I avoided chemistry in HS, ha! =/ Now I'm kicking myself in the butt for it if chemistry is this important/crucial to my nursing career. Heh.

[SmilingBluEyes]

yes of course.

it's a no brainer. they also need physics, biology, microbiology, and many other sciences. it IS a bachelor's in SCIENCE degree, after all, or did I miss something here????

chem is fundamental to any nursing education.

[live4today, RN]

Originally posted by 3rdShiftGuy

I think an understanding of chemistry is important. I didn't have to take any chemistry as part of my ADN program and am functioning fine as a nurse. They accepted the chemistry I took in high school as fulfulling the Chemistry requirement.

WHAAAAAATTT? In my ADN Program, Chemistry was most definitely required! Intro to Chemistry, and Biochemistry and Life Sciences (or something to that title...it's been years already).

Chemistry is most definitely essential in nursing, and any program of nursing who does not offer chemistry should be enforced to do so prior to any nursing courses taken. :)

[Agnus]

grouchy,

That was the school you attended. Chem is not taught like that everywhere. As a matter of fact, in large universities many courses are taught the way you described your chem class. That is just the nature of large universities.

Yet very often within these large schools one can often find a section of a class (that is being taught as you described) where it is presented in a smaller class room in a more user friendly enviornment by someone who cares about the students.

I am not saying this is true for every such class but there are options every where you go. (ie summer classes, a near by school that teaches the same class, an honnors class, etc.)

The problems is in these schools students tend to get lost in the system because it is so large and overwhelming. You have to be a detective and persistant to find what you really need in these schools.

Having been to multiple shcools (8)

and having put my kids though I would take a small school any day.

[Q.]

Agree with many posters that chemistry is a basic foundation to life that should be taught to nursing students.

I had a 4 hour Chemistry and 4 hour Biochemistry course in my nursing program and felt I've used all of it in my career as a nurse.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by SmilingBluEyes

yes of course.

it's a no brainer. they also need physics, biology, microbiology, and many other sciences. it IS a bachelor's in SCIENCE degree, after all, or did I miss something here????

chem is fundamental to any nursing education.

Deb - :chuckle (duh) Great response!

steph