Education of nurses

realnursealso/LPN, LPN · May 20, 2012

Don't hold your breath, it will never happen.

OCNRN63, RN · May 20, 2012

now i know this may upset some but...
i think that all nurses should be bsn prepared at minimum, and all lpn, asn, and diploma programs should be eradicated.
my reasoning for this? how many other fields can say they are "professionals" with less than an associate degree? education is never a bad thing and the more education one has, the better. i believe nurses would be seen as more professional, and there would be less people trying to get into the field as a "fast and easy way to make decent money" as many nursing programs advertise. perhaps then, nurses would see better wages and easier opportunites to find employment.
i would love to hear what others think on this topic. i turly hope this goes into effect in the near future!

yipee. we've never had this discussion before.

i'm one of those "unprofessional" nurses who graduated from a diploma program 27y ago. yes, i happen to be doing a bsn completion program, but i don't think having a bsn is necessarily a guarantee of being regard more professionally, nor would it be a guarantee that the nurses would be more professional. there's a lot to be said for knowing what you are doing and comporting yourself appropriately.

i agree there should be one entry-level into nursing, but i am not going to be dismissive of my co-workers who are lpns, adns and diploma nurses like myself. to me, that is unprofessional.

Asystole RN · May 20, 2012

Don't hold your breath, it will never happen.

No? How many diploma programs are there anymore? What is happening to the masters level NP programs?

The BSN level of education will be the standard entry level of education for registered nurses in the future, just as the ASN is the standard now.

The AACN, NCSBN, ANA, NLN and others have already agreed on this subject and have put into motion long term interventions to make the BSN the standard.

LPNs are a different subject.

OCNRN63, RN · May 20, 2012

i suspect that hospitals that are requiring nurses to go back to complete their bsns are really targeting older staff, who probably graduated from diploma/adn programs. it's a great way to weed out staff who are making higher wages as well as getting rid of older staff who may not move as fast as a 22y old. i doubt it has all that much to do with wanting to have a more educated staff. many facilities don't even pay more for a bsn. it does look good if the hospital is going for magnet to have a mostly bsn staff.

Asystole RN · May 20, 2012

Yipee. We've never had this discussion before.
I'm one of those "unprofessional" nurses who graduated from a diploma program 27y ago. Yes, I happen to be doing a BSN completion program, but I don't think having a BSN is necessarily a guarantee of being regard more professionally, nor would it be a guarantee that the nurses would be more professional. There's a lot to be said for knowing what you are doing and comporting yourself appropriately.
I agree there should be one entry-level into nursing, but I am not going to be dismissive of my co-workers who are LPNs, ADNs and diploma nurses like myself. To me, that is unprofessional.

You must admit that the education you received in the 80's is not adequate for what registered nursing has become today. No one wants to eradicate diploma nurses, ASNs, or LPNs. The goal is to change the future standard of education to better prepare students for the future as registered nursing becomes more and more advanced.

onetiredmomma · May 20, 2012

A hundred years ago...ok 1970 when I got my LPN and again in 1982 when I got my ADN this was a hot topic of discussion. I truly feel if SOMEONE would make a decision, set a date, provide some sort of "grandfather" clause nursing would be in a better place, nurses would make more $$ and would have better job opportunities all around. I blame this nondecision on that fact that nursing is female dominated and we as females used to be taught to accept and agree to whatever was told to us.

futurehomebirthcnm · May 20, 2012

There are plenty of professionals without a bachelor's degree--many technical programs are two years or less. A lot of professionals don't have degrees at all, especially in the tech realm. So that's not the greatest argument ever.

Right now most units delegate less-skilled duties. This is a cost-saving mechanism. It doesn't make fiscal sense to have a BSN to cover everything from a.m. care to passing trays to passing meds for every patient, and safety is generally not compromised by doing so. Or do you think it is?

Asystole RN · May 20, 2012

A hundred years ago...ok 1970 when I got my LPN and again in 1982 when I got my ADN this was a hot topic of discussion. I truly feel if SOMEONE would make a decision, set a date, provide some sort of "grandfather" clause nursing would be in a better place, nurses would make more $$ and would have better job opportunities all around. I blame this nondecision on that fact that nursing is female dominated and we as females used to be taught to accept and agree to whatever was told to us.

The decision has been made already and the plan has already been enacted. You cannot just turn off all the ASN programs or fire all the LPNs and Diploma nurses. What you can do though is increase the amount of RN-BSN programs, increase the amount of BSN grants, and put into motion recommendations for hospitals to hire BSN nurses. First it was "BSN preferred" then it will be "BSN required."

These changes happen over years if not decades. Again I reference the diploma RN, how many new diploma programs do you see?

Asystole RN · May 20, 2012

There are plenty of professionals without a bachelor's degree--many technical programs are two years or less. A lot of professionals don't have degrees at all, especially in the tech realm. So that's not the greatest argument ever.
Right now most units delegate less-skilled duties. This is a cost-saving mechanism. It doesn't make fiscal sense to have a BSN to cover everything from a.m. care to passing trays to passing meds for every patient, and safety is generally not compromised by doing so. Or do you think it is?

I think you are using the layman definition of profession that is less defined and more closely resembles the term vocation. A profession, as known in the professional and academic world, has a more specific definition and set of requirements. In order for an occupation to be a profession it must have certain traits such as self regulation and a uniform standard of education for entry into the profession, among other things. Nursing lacks a standard of education, something that MDs, lawyers, and the like have.

There actually are studies that demonstrate that a higher level of education provides a safer level of care. With the new Medicare rules even rare mistakes can be extremely costly.

Altra, BSN, RN · May 20, 2012

I agree, I think the entry point to registered nursing should be a bachelor's degree. I wish that all 50 state boards of nursing would announce the enactment of this requirement to be effective 5 years from now, to allow for completion of other educational paths already under way. At the enactment date, all existing RNs holding licenses at that time would be grandfathered in.

Oh, and BTW ... I am that oxymoron known as a 21st-century diploma grad (excellent education!) who later completed a BSN.

Asystole RN · May 20, 2012

I agree, I think the entry point to registered nursing should be a bachelor's degree. I wish that all 50 state boards of nursing would announce the enactment of this requirement to be effective 5 years from now, to allow for completion of other educational paths already under way. At the enactment date, all existing RNs holding licenses at that time would be grandfathered in.
Oh, and BTW ... I am that oxymoron known as a 21st-century diploma grad (excellent education!) who later completed a BSN.

Can I ask where you received your diploma? I'm always curious to find out where these facilities are, I think it is actually pretty neat.

Your idea has been proposed before but the problem is that there currently are not enough BSN programs to put out enough RNs to meet demand. The problem is not that programs do not want to open to meet demand but there simply are not enough instructors nor clinical sites. The NLN maintains statistics on this and they are very interesting.

If you think about it, you need someone with a great deal of education and experience to adequately train nurses. Those nurses that meet the criteria are worth a ton of money in the non-academic world, it is not easy to recruit someone to take a pay cut.

Instead of making a hard deadline the powers that be are increasing funding and grants to BSN level programs to help them recruit and develop larger nursing programs. The idea is to make a slow transition using market incentives such as Magnet to increase the demand for BSN nurses and slowly build up the BSN programs to cope. If the plan works well no one will even see the transition, just one day they will looking around and not see any ASN nurses.