First, I do not want to challenge nurses with several years of clinical experience that are ADN or diploma trained nurses or those nurses that graduated recently with a ADN, and I do not want to challenge anyone by saying that there is a difference between the ADN versus the BSN prepared nurse.
There is a push for all nurses to be BSN prepared or for ADNs to achieve their BSN; however, there is no increase in wages for the majority of those with their BSN or those going from an ADN to a BSN. I find that as a workforce, we do not understand our worth. Why do we need the BSN as it costs more and it has no pay benefits. Students that have an ADN from a community college have less student loans, and they make the same a student that has a BSN; however, the BSN student has increased student debt with no increased monetary income to show for their degree.
I challenge the nursing workforce to acknowledge our value as a profession, and demand an increase in pay if we are to have a BSN. The current yearly income of a nurse is based on the costs of an ADN level of education; however, it does not match the cost of a BSN cost of education. If I am required or it is preferred that I have my BSN, I need to be paid accordingly. I do not practice nursing strictly for the income, but I do appreciate putting a dollar value on the work I do.
Very simply put, as long as there are nurses willing to work for low wages, employers will be only too happy to accommodate them. In today's economy with a glut of nurses and no glut of available jobs, there are too many who find low wages better than no wages.
Next to EMTs and Paramedics, RNs in the US have the least professional education requirements of all health care professions. Even "Assistants" (PT, OT) require a minimum of an Associates. Nursing in the US is the laughing stock of the civilized world when it comes to education. Raising the bare to meet the minimum of what the rest of the educated world is doing in health care should not be too much to ask.
I would also come to the conclusion that those complaining about pay are employed. If you have a BSN and are employed, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. There are also many professionals in professions requiring more than a mere 4 year degree (teachers, IT, engineers, lawyers, accountants) who don't have jobs because of layoffs.
Really? In all my years and a nurses I never had any indication of that. What do you have to support this claim?
This person has commented on more than one post today just to point out our lack of education. Try not to let their crazy talk bother you. The claims are unsubstantiated.
This person has commented on more than one post today just to point out our lack of education. Try not to let their crazy talk bother you. The claims are unsubstantiated.
You really think education is crazy?
That means over 1.5 million nurses who hold at least a BSN are crazy. There have been many comparisons done for the education levels of nurses in several other countries. Am I the only one who reads the nursing journals and have heard of higher education standards in other countries?
You can also look at the overall literacy rates and education system in the US and see how poor it is in comparison to other countries. What do we do if a child dont pass a test? We lower the grading system. What happens when people call education crazy in a profession? That profession stagnates.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
You really think education is crazy?
Wow! That is a pretty huge leap to take. Obviously she said NOTHING of the kind.
There have been many comparisons done for the education levels of nurses in several other countries. Am I the only one who reads the nursing journals and have heard of higher education standards in other countries?
That's nice. However saying there have been journal articals about nursing education in other countries does absolutly nothing to support your claim that American nurses and our education are the laughing stock of the world. I can't wait to see your evidence of your claim.
Have you ever worked in any other country as an RN? Are you licensed as an RN in any other countries? I am and have. I am licensed in New Zealand, a country that requires a bachelors degree in nursing for licensure and I didn't have a bachelors degree. A review of my nursing education by the NZ board of nursing found that my community college nursing education was substancialy similar to their three year bachelors in nursing degree that I could be granted a license. I can tell you that when working as an RN in NZ I never expienced anything that would remotly lead me to believe American nurses and our education is the "laughing stock" of the world as you insist. Quite the oppisit in fact. I never perceived anything but respect for American nurses.
You can also look at the overall literacy rates and education system in the US and see how poor it is in comparison to other countries.
Maybe but not even remotely on topic about nursing education.
What happens when people call education crazy in a profession? That profession stagnates
Maybe, when one single person calls education crazy you MAY have a point. Since nobody has ever done that in this discussion it sounds more like ranting to me.
This is just what I have found initially, but it sparked my interest and I will likely dig a little deeper.
Here's a bit of a snippet about the value of BSNs compared to ADNs in terms of reducing patient mortality. A few studies note reduced mortality of patients when an increased presence of BSNs exist. Is it a direct correlation to the BSNs present or the type of facilities where BSNs are found in increased numbers? More research is needed, but if this holds true through numerous large studies, and can be proven to be a direct correlation, then a BSN should be paid more than an ADN.
"A growing body of research documents that hospitals with a larger proportion of bedside care nurses with BSNs or higher qualifications is associated with lower risk of patient mortality. Aiken and colleagues (2003) in a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association(JAMA) showed that in 1999, each 10 percent increase in the proportion of a hospital's bedside nurse workforce with BSN qualification was associated with a 5 percent decline in mortality following common surgical procedures. A similar finding was published by Friese and associates for cancer surgical outcomes (Friese et al., 2008). Aiken's team has replicated this finding in a larger study of hospitals in 2006. Similar results have been published for medical as well as surgical patients in at least three large studies in Canada and Belgium (Estabrooks et al., 2005; Tourangeau et al., 2007; Van den Heede et al., 2009)." and "In Aiken's JAMA paper, evidence was presented to show that the mortality rates were the same for hospitals in which nurses cared for 8 patients each, on average, and 60 percent had a BSN and for hospitals in which nurses cared for only 4 patients each but only 20 percent had a BSN (Aiken, 2008; Aiken et al., 2003)."
Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine; Institute of Medicine. (2011). The future of nursing : Leading change, advancing health. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.
How many of those BSN's were ADN's that later went back for their BSN?
How many of those BSN's were ADN's that later went back for their BSN?
You could extrapolate that out and have an estimate of the number: figure in 2011 there were 2.8 million RNs in the US and 28,000 RNs in 2011 were awarded post-licensure bachelors. We can grossly estimate that in a single year about one in every 100 RNs is a post-licensure BSN. Obviously there are other factors including retirement, newly graduated RNs, etc that would make the calculation much more complicated, but it provides a rough estimate.
Is that enough to change the argument? If it is then it provides direct evidence that requiring ADN to BSN education is beneficial, if not that BSN-entry is beneficial.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Is that enough to change the argument? If it is then it provides direct evidence that requiring ADN to BSN education is beneficial, if not that BSN-entry is beneficial.
It doesn't matter. The push for BSN only has absolutely nothing to do with better patient care. It doesn't matter what the "evidence" does or doesn't show.
If the advocates of BSN only REAL goal was simply to require a BSN as entry to practice they could have obtained that long ago with hardly a speed bump of opposition. The path to a higher degree requirement for entry to practice is well-trod with many successful examples to follow. Those examples were not followed for one simple reason. Requiring a BSN as entry to practice is only a minor and secondary goal for them.
It doesn't matter. The push for BSN only has absolutely nothing to do with better patient care. It doesn't matter what the "evidence" does or doesn't show.
To those that are objective the evidence does matter.
To those that are subjective, perhaps not. Conspiracy theory does not negate the objective.
To those that are objective the evidence does matter.
To those that are subjective, perhaps not. Conspiracy theory does not negate the objective.
One of the only realistic solutions for making BSN entry to practice is to take ADN grads and simply rename them as 'BSN' (with the addition of up to 1 year of general electives). If we take a recently graduated ADN nurse, and simply change the letters on their diploma to "BSN", do you really think that suddenly alters the mortality rate of their patients?
caliotter3
38,333 Posts
Very simply put, as long as there are nurses willing to work for low wages, employers will be only too happy to accommodate them. In today's economy with a glut of nurses and no glut of available jobs, there are too many who find low wages better than no wages.