Local hospital now says "BSN or MSN preferred" for all bedside positions?!

Nursing Students ADN/BSN

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My goodness, I was just getting used to seeing "BSN preferred" at many a big-city hospital in my region. It's not such a thing at the smaller community hospitals in my area as of now, though. Being that it is my Sunday off, I thought I'd look at the nearest big city hospitals' job postings and one in the area has the gumption to request not only BSN-holding, but *MSN* -holding nurses for all bedside positions. Not management. Bedside, direct patient care nurses. Do my eyes deceive me? Has anyone else seen or heard of this going on in their area too??

I'm sure more education is always a good thing, but COME ON! Do you think this hospital is asking too much?

Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

I know that my facility does not pay more for simply obtaining the BSN or MSN, but having those earns you "points" on the clinical ladder. So it pays, indirectly.

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Specializes in LTC, Education, Management, QAPI.

Be careful how you read into this. I spoke with a few of my colleagues in the local hospital system on this topic last year. The "MSN" preferred moniker is not just because you have to have a MSN to be a bedside nurse, it is that they WANT more highly educated nurses at the bedside. Riverside Regional Medical Center is one of those hospitals that I spoke with. They have no plans to not hire ADN or BSN prepared nurses, but they have a program in place for nurses who want to remain at the bedside to get their MSN and stay in bedside nursing with a better pay rate. I think this is awesome, as long as they don't start to require the MSN. What better way for a nurse who loves bedside nursing to get more education, furthering their internal processes and offering that to the patient directly. The problem is that once a nurse gets the MSN, they no longer want to be at bedside and go into management. Programs such as the RRMC program is designed to KEEP the higher educated nurses at the bedside. I don't know if this is the same theory for your OP but it was the end product of what I found.

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nurse.

I am from Tampa FL and alot of the local areas are mandating that RN's have bsn's. I believe it varies on your location

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Unfortunately, BSN or MSN is the trend in the midwest where I live. After being a LPN for decades, I decided to go for my ADN recently, only to learn that they too are being overlooked. Hospitals won't accept applications from ADNs. I would think a MSN could be better utilized other than at bedside. I've worked with some great BSNs and ADNs. One of my former employers was an ADN and she was the administrator. I don't understand the reasoning behind these changes. What do they hope to achieve by doing this? It's not the initials behind the name, or even how many years you went to school, that make you a good nurse. It's what you have inside, that makes you a good nurse! It can't be taught in a classroom or during clinicals. You won't find it in any textbook. The scared and sick patient, or even the dying patient, could care less about your degree, as long as you are there and go that extra step to comfort and reassure them, or to hold their hand as they take their last breathe. A nurse is a nurse, regardless of degree. If BSN/MSN are at the bedside, who will teach and mentor the future? These facilities need to go back and rethink this new policy.

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nurse.
Unfortunately, BSN or MSN is the trend in the midwest where I live. After being a LPN for decades, I decided to go for my ADN recently, only to learn that they too are being overlooked. Hospitals won't accept applications from ADNs. I would think a MSN could be better utilized other than at bedside. I've worked with some great BSNs and ADNs. One of my former employers was an ADN and she was the administrator. I don't understand the reasoning behind these changes. What do they hope to achieve by doing this? It's not the initials behind the name, or even how many years you went to school, that make you a good nurse. It's what you have inside, that makes you a good nurse! It can't be taught in a classroom or during clinicals. You won't find it in any textbook. The scared and sick patient, or even the dying patient, could care less about your degree, as long as you are there and go that extra step to comfort and reassure them, or to hold their hand as they take their last breathe. A nurse is a nurse, regardless of degree. If BSN/MSN are at the bedside, who will teach and mentor the future? These facilities need to go back and rethink this new policy.

^

I couldn't agree more. It's a total sham. Ironically I'm doing my BSN online at now lol

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Specializes in LTC, Education, Management, QAPI.

All I can say is that after going to school for my BSN, I believe I am a better nurse than I was before, just like I was better for getting my RN from when I was an LPN. We teach our kids that education is power, so why isn't that true for us? Do we just not want the hassle of going back to school?

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

BSN/MSN is most likely due to the 66 MSN direct entry programs for those with BS in another discipline-- they are not granted a BSN so would not have that credential to use in employment software. For a facility looking to achieve the highest educated workforce, MSN would be hired over ADN grad if all other attributes equal.

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Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.

Jumping out on a weak limb here, I have no personal problem with mandatory BSNs and think it appropriate for professional nursing to require a bachelor's degree.

Please don't accost me. I mean you one harm. We've likely all seen the journals that cite sources that indicate better patient outcomes for bachelor's prepared nurses. Granted, none of the dozen or so kids in my BSN cohort (I was older) wanted anything to do with bedside nursing. I've never encountered any of them since the last day of school so I can't say what they're doing now.

As an aside, my most favorite nursing classes were those that our ADN counterparts in the same college didn't get to take namely pathophysiology, pharmacology, "issues," and sometimes even research methods was fun although the coolest course I ever took was a decade ago and not remotely related to nursing.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Are there nursing master's programs that aren't admin, edu, CNS or NP? I can't imagine what you'd take if they aren't focused on one of those four areas.
A couple of schools offer the MSN in specialty areas such as infection control, informatics, patient advocacy, holistic nursing, case management, etc. So there are options other than admin, leadership, education or the typical APRN courses.
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Jumping out on a weak limb here, I have no personal problem with mandatory BSNs and think it appropriate for professional nursing to require a bachelor's degree.

Please don't accost me. I mean you one harm. We've likely all seen the journals that cite sources that indicate better patient outcomes for bachelor's prepared nurses. Granted, none of the dozen or so kids in my BSN cohort (I was older) wanted anything to do with bedside nursing. I've never encountered any of them since the last day of school so I can't say what they're doing now.

As an aside, my most favorite nursing classes were those that our ADN counterparts in the same college didn't get to take namely pathophysiology, pharmacology, "issues," and sometimes even research methods was fun although the coolest course I ever took was a decade ago and not remotely related to nursing.

Am I misunderstanding you? Are you saying that ADN's at your school did not take patho or pharm? I really doubt that there is a nursing program out there that does not have patho or pharm, at least built into the program.

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Specializes in Nursing Education, CVICU, Float Pool.
Am I misunderstanding you? Are you saying that ADN's at your school did not take patho or pharm? I really doubt that there is a nursing program out there that does not have patho or pharm, at least built into the program.

Exactly. We had separate Pharm coursework in my ADN course and patho integrated into each separate course and specific pharm content according to the area of nursing we were studying too.

Now is that the same as a separate patho course? No. But we would be very disadvantaged in nursing and NCLEX if we didn't learn patho and pharmacy for that matter.

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Jumping out on a weak limb here, I have no personal problem with mandatory BSNs and think it appropriate for professional nursing to require a bachelor's degree.

Please don't accost me. I mean you one harm. We've likely all seen the journals that cite sources that indicate better patient outcomes for bachelor's prepared nurses. Granted, none of the dozen or so kids in my BSN cohort (I was older) wanted anything to do with bedside nursing. I've never encountered any of them since the last day of school so I can't say what they're doing now.

As an aside, my most favorite nursing classes were those that our ADN counterparts in the same college didn't get to take namely pathophysiology, pharmacology, "issues," and sometimes even research methods was fun although the coolest course I ever took was a decade ago and not remotely related to nursing.

Thank you for your comment. As an ADN student, I did take pharmacology, statistics, and pathophysiology. As I said before, I am all for continuing education. I am becoming concerned that employers want more --- way more, on my dime. Will hospitals actually PAY these MSN-holding RNs more based on their perceived value? I too enjoyed many of my nsg classes, but the main point of gaining my degree and licensure was to secure a job. Sorry, but I have worked too hard to have the s a me standard of living as a mickey d's employee.

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