I'm writing this because there may be others like me out there before I realized that nursing has almost nothing to do with science, or medicine, and is often at odds with the medical community. These facts may have alot to do with why nursing is the Rodney Dangerfield of the hospital and "don't get no respect" from administration and has a poor public image.
I've spent the better part of the last year trying to rationalize nursing didactic focus. I can find no value in it that develops the critical thinking skills that those pronursing advocates would have you believe exists. I also don't understand how a bachelors degree in science can be awarded to a person completing four years of training in that supposed science with only a college level math and one lonely little chemistry course. I figured that the science in nursing would be unique, but not so unique that it did not resemble science at all. I kept waiting for the next set of classes to show some inkling of medical knowledge until the day I recieved the "pharmacology" packet. The one class out of twentyfive that had real promise of laying out some scientific information, but clung desparately to its psychosocial touchy-feely model. None of the contraindications were explored and the assessments all involved hypoventilation as a focus. The main theme for that packet was drug calculations, which are nothing more than operations with fractions. I could go on of course, but if you are a scientific minded person you have been feeling this since the prerequisites, so you know what I'm talking about.
Really, I should have given this up a semester ago, but I had to explore the possibility that it may have been just a poor attitude about something new. I can honestly say that the attitude belongs to nursing's curicculum. Ever since Florence Nightengale nursing has been struggling to define an identity. If they use the medical model they wouldn't be unique enough to justify a separate identity. That yearning for identity complicated the use of anything medical, though they obviously already had a separate identity within the medical model since the job desciptions between nursing and other allied contrast. I'm here to tell you that nursing has quite successfuly cut-the-cord. There is very little to hold interest to the scientificly minded individual. The problem with that course is that nursing is now so estanged from the medical community that birthed it, that it doesn't work in medicine at all. Nursing is psychology and philosophy, masqerading as a science. By its own efforts it has become so separated from medical thinking that it is now dysfunctional in it.
It is not you.
Nursing just doesn't work for someone that thinks about medicine. The students that are fond of the sciences now in prerequisites and loathe the psychology and developmental theories, will neverfind what they seek in a nursing program. You will be miserable, as I was, and you will make the people around you miserable.
You can't hold your breath until NP classes either. The same anti-medical thinking dominates that too. Save yourself, and your brilliant and exact medical thought process, and see nursing for what it is.
This past week I have prepared to start work on the pre-coursework sciences that I'm lacking for a degree in physiology and neurobiology. I will become a physician's assisstant. The curicculum in the last two years is the same medical model that the physiscians themselves trained in. It's the same program. I will then chose a specialty to train in and will diagnose and treat disease under the supervision of a physician as a colleague, not an adversary to thier philosophy of patient care.
Alright Peeps...are their uniforms cooler or what?
I think the nursing profession will lose a wonderful nurse to be if you do pursue the PA route...but you need to feed your interests wherever is best for you...heck, I think you'd make a good doc :uhoh21: you've got a good amount of "nurse" in you
Good luck in your chosen field. Nursing is not for everyone. There is no field that is for everyone. I thank God for the difference. If everyone wanted the same thing in a career this world would be in trouble as only one thing would get done.
I am in an ADN program and I have yet to write a paper on "how to be a good nurse." Yes, I have heard all about Florence, but she is not the cornerstone of my program. Our papers, too, are on diseases and disease processes.
Peeps -
Maybe the ADN program in your area is focused differently than mine. We did have to endure the touchy feely stuff, but we get our share of science. Though I must admit the touchy feely stuff is an important aspect of our job.
You sound like a very intelligent person and I'm sure whatever field you decide on you'll be great in. Good luck! :)
I appreciate all the responses to a topic older than this BB. I wanted to also look into other programs to compare my experience and see if it was similar. It would seem, in the words of more than one frustrated nursing student, that my program "sucks ass" :chuckle. The lack of chemistry beyond that for 101 and any other science below the 200 level class probably precludes discussion of physiology, pharmacology, pathology, or anything else interesting.
I have nothing to lose by going to the two main university programs, explainig my need for science, and seeing what they have for a curicculum. I think I might be able to reconcile my feelings for the touchy-feely if there were a heavy science requirement.
One of the schools has a Biology department that lets you plan which courses you'll take to gain your BS outside of the corerequisites. To be able to blend marine biology and histology into a degree in Animal Anatomy and Physiology that will carry the requirements of the PA as well as some of the NP;) programs isvery exciting. I know that makes some people roll thier eyes:rolleyes: back, but it really turns me on....................Oh gawwwd not like that!:imbar but a little tingly anyway.:)
There were some people on this thread that were concerned that I might want to get away from the touchy-feely because I may find it difficult to care about my patients on a personal level. I do care about patients on that level, I have a dynamic bedside manner, I've even been told that I'm charming and patients enjoy my company. There is a personal bond with patients, but I have to admit that it stops beyond the walls of the institution. I can't get very interested in thier social well-being, or the possibility that outside stressors affect them in some peculiar way. Like that great example that Oramar gave about the nurse that thought the patient was looking away from her in some cultural context. I would never assume that on initial examination, because it just isn't a parameter that I can manipulate for an outcome, so logicly it would not be considered on that level. I do understand why that nurse was thinking that way because I've been through that now, so I see it for what it is and how it can happen to someone.
You know, you guys are decent people. So far we've communicated opposing viewpoints brilliantly. I feel like I've made alot of milelage into my "identity crisis". I wish I could look into some of the programs that were described here, but I'm stuck with the Maryland University System.
Whatever I do, I will always hold high regard for nurses and thier education.
If someone has any more input of any kind I'll keep posting to it. I'm between semesters and I feel like I'm retired or something!
Whatever I do, I will always hold high regard for nurses and thier education.
Buuuuuut, you don't. At least, not the education part. Right?
I took my anatomy, and micro at a 2 year college. Since those courses don't transfer outside of the ADN-BSN to any four-year institution I imagine they were inadequate to anything but a nursing program.
I get the feeling that your program has skewed your opinion on this just a bit. Certainly, it's horrifying to consider a curriculum that values psychsocial skills over clinical assessment...but I find myself unable to see the converse as anything positive, either. Sure, it'd be better to be "stuck" with an excellent clinician rather than a subpar one. And yet, if that wonderful clinician saw me as a seething ball of symptoms and vital signs instead of a person, well... I would feel less comforted.
It is generally accepted within the medical field that doctors focus more on the pathology of illness and disease, while a nurse's concern is of a more holistic nature. They are different approaches to the same goal - healing. And yes, they overlap and bleed into one another. The trick is to figure out which part of the team you want to play for. Are you a pitcher, or do you dig shortstop? You just have to find that niche.
Still, that said, I don't think that making someone feel better emotionally or psychologically is the sole purpose of nursing; if that were the case, we could just stick a freakin' puppy in the patient's room and everything would be dandy. And most people do expect their doctor to have some people skills. For example: a medical student ex-boyfriend of mine once got marks off a pediatric rotation evaluation because he made a patient's mother cry. (Yeah, he was a real winner. )
I forgot what my point was. It's 2:30 in the morning. Forgive me.
Oh yeah. I understand what you're saying about wanting to deal more with hard science than fluffy bunny crap. It makes sense. I myself would NEVER want to be anywhere NEAR a program that eschewed clinical skill for fluffy bunnies.
But I still don't buy that you respect nursing education. :) You've already as much as said you don't. And I'm sure that's because your program's accreditation should be revoked RIGHT NOW.
Good luck with the PA program, BTW. And I do not envy you the Calc.
I think the fact that I attended a nursing program shows that I hold nurses in high regard. You have no idea how emasculating that was to my male self. I put alot of effort towards putting that aside to try and learn a new way of seeing the world through nursing's eyes. The program that I went through presented it as virtualy all psychosocial, but who's to say that this program is representing nursing as it should be done. We can see from some of the responses that in general, including you, there is a sense of disdain surrounding psychosocial etiologies for everything. It is also agreed among us that there is a psychosocial aspect to patient care, and that point I respect.
So, without regard to nurses, and programs that think psychosocial variables should take precedence over science, I respect nursing and hold thier training in high regard.
From Donna
I get the feeling that your program has skewed your opinion on this just a bit. Certainly, it's horrifying to consider a curriculum that values psychsocial skills over clinical assessment...but I find myself unable to see the converse as anything positive, either. Sure, it'd be better to be "stuck" with an excellent clinician rather than a subpar one. And yet, if that wonderful clinician saw me as a seething ball of symptoms and vital signs instead of a person, well... I would feel less comforted.
I will remember to always carry a puppy and a fluffy bunny in those generous labcoat pockets:chuckle
I think the stereotypical medical minded person has also skewed the minds of some nurses that hold closer to psychosocial values than they do medicine. I am definitely more on the medical side of how my program presented nursing, but I really believe that I possess greater people skills than most nurses that I have worked with. For example, I was in sales for years before going back to school. During that time I learned people skills the hard way. If people don't think you care about thier needs, they don't buy from you. If you're a phony, you could be giving the crap away for free and nobody would take it. I was the top salesperson everywhere I worked because I learned how to make people feel good about themselves and me. In clinicals that ability was noted on my evaluations.
My negative marks in clinical were more having to do with spending too much time gathering drug information and presenting more than needed about the drugs before supervised administration as a time-management issue. My careplans were always less psychosocial and more clinical in focus, but not because I don't care how the patient feels, it's because psychosocial context is vague to me.
I think if you were forced to endure me as your clinician, you would be charmed to health by my value to you as a person, but you would seek comfort in my science skills to trust me to heal you.
I have a bachelor's degree in nursing. It required three chemistry classes- not one: General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and BioChemistry. It required College-llevel Allgebra and Statistics. and other extra prereqs like developmental psychology.. Having said that, after all these prerequisites, I was disappointed in the content of the nursing classes. Talk about a let-down.
Yup, I saw the Towson University nursing prerequesites while I was browsing biology degrees. I got excited initialy about the organic chem and statistics requirements, but after looking at the course descriptions it seems as if science is barely mentioned. That would be the same as my previous program unfortunately, with the exception of the extra math and chem.
The biology degree I'm looking at requires 2 semesters of general chem in lower-level and 2 of biochem in the upper-lvel course.
Ya' think I'll actualy use all that knowledge later?
You betcha, but never in harmony with sociology or psychosocial context. That's not realistic for nursing to think that's going to happen. Sorry to hear you got ripped-off.
Oh yeah. I understand what you're saying about wanting to deal more with hard science than fluffy bunny crap. It makes sense. I myself would NEVER want to be anywhere NEAR a program that eschewed clinical skill for fluffy bunnies.
Oh yeah. I understand what you're saying about wanting to deal more with hard science than fluffy bunny crap. It makes sense. I myself would NEVER want to be anywhere NEAR a program that eschewed clinical skill for fluffy bunnies.
Love-A-Nurse
3,932 Posts
sorry peeps, i believe you said you didn't see the need for psychology as a pre-req for nursing school, not that you did not understand the subject./?