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

[Nola009]

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?

[Nola009]

Btw, I believe in healthy debate. I see AN as a info giving and gathering tool. I have no interest in offending you or anyone else here:cat:

[PG2018]

You seem to be describing a difference in total credits for the ADN and BSN programs you are referring to as being a year or more. That seems highly unlikely. I've dealt the managing curriculum of both types of programs and the difference in total credits for the "program" portion is typically 15 credits or less (usually a public health class, leadership class, and sometimes a statistics class).

I agree that a BSN is preferable to an ADN, but then again any sort of additional education/experience is preferable. I think "second career" nurses have an advantage due to more life experience, although I don't think it should be required. I have a BSN as well as a previous bachelors degree, which helps, does that mean all nurses should be required to have two bachelors degrees?

Well, the BSN was 125 credit hours if you were entering as a first time college student. I returned already holding a BS in another field, all of the prereqs for nursing school, and six hours towards a useless master's that I dropped out of when I was 23.

The ADN grads who, if I recall earned an AS degree, received like 61 credits or something. I found it all very intriguing because when I called the department chair to talk with her about going to her school I originally wanted to enter the associate's program because they took less classes. I figured that would be easier for someone who worked full-time as I did. In hindsight, I was fortunate that the associate's program was full, and the BSN program was not. It took me exactly the same number of semesters to finish the BSN as it would have the AS, but I did take more courses each semester.

I was mistaken in one important thing. My BSN program combined the obstetrics and pediatrics into one class although we had to buy a separate book for each. I also had to take an online nutrition course one summer as a "deficiency" because I didn't take it the first time I was in college. The school has since dropped that requirement. Lucky me.

[PG2018]

Btw, I believe in healthy debate. I see AN as a info giving and gathering tool. I have no interest in offending you or anyone else here:cat:

You didn't offend. I just think everyone was taking what I stated the wrong way.

[kaydensmom01]

See that's just it. I'm being flamed over this and for no reason. I believe the BSN is better professional preparation, and I stand by that for a host of reasons. The nursing specialty classes, i.e. peds, OB, med-surg stuff, and so forth were the same books and nearly the same syllabus at my school. The difference was in some other coursework. We did some papers, case studies, and the ADNs did less of that and a couple of more clinical days than we did. Everyone is entitled to their opinion as to which is better professional preparation. I'll end it by saying that yes, we also had patho and pharm integrated into our nursing specialty classes as well. How can that not be? What we did get was many more college courses which included such things as stand alone health assessment, pathophysiology, pharmacology, healthcare management, public health, research methodology, issues and trends in nursing, critical care, and similar things. I'm not saying my knowledge base is superior to anyone's and never indicated that. I just think that, professionally speaking, the BSN is the way to go, and yes my favorite courses were those that the ADNs did not get included in their curricula as stand alone coursework.

Referring back, my school's ADN program included fundamentals of nursing, med math, women's health, mental health, pediatric nursing, med-surg I and med-surg II. The same school's BSN included foundational aspects of nursing (same book, nearly same syllabus), pharmacology, health assessment, issues and trends in nursing, med-surg I (same book, nearly same syllabus), mental health nursing (same course w/ different book and syllabus), pathophysiology, public health, healthcare management, med-surg II (same book, nearly same syllabus), research methodology, obstetrical nursing, pediatric nursing, and critical care nursing.

I think the latter is better educational preparation for the professional. I just don't see how one can argue against that, and I'm still not saying I know more. I just think it's a better academic program.

I also think that the BSN is the better degree, which is why I will have mine soon. But in my area there are no differences between ADN and BSN "nursing" classes (ob, peds, med-surg, etc). My ADN was 69 credits and the BSN is 122. Those extra credit hours were purely humanities/fine arts and the extra RN-BSN classes are classes like health policy, leadership, etc. There are no patho classes, no pharm classes, no clinicals because we already received the same learning level in those subjects at the BSN students. I do not know of any RN-BSN programs that require students to take pharm, patho, or such because ADN students already learn it at the level of the BSN.

So yes I do think BSN is the better degree because the extra classes have helped me become more well rounded, but did not actually teach me anything directly about "nursing".

[MunoRN, RN]

Well, the BSN was 125 credit hours if you were entering as a first time college student. I returned already holding a BS in another field, all of the prereqs for nursing school, and six hours towards a useless master's that I dropped out of when I was 23.

The ADN grads who, if I recall earned an AS degree, received like 61 credits or something. I found it all very intriguing because when I called the department chair to talk with her about going to her school I originally wanted to enter the associate's program because they took less classes. I figured that would be easier for someone who worked full-time as I did. In hindsight, I was fortunate that the associate's program was full, and the BSN program was not. It took me exactly the same number of semesters to finish the BSN as it would have the AS, but I did take more courses each semester.

I was mistaken in one important thing. My BSN program combined the obstetrics and pediatrics into one class although we had to buy a separate book for each. I also had to take an online nutrition course one summer as a "deficiency" because I didn't take it the first time I was in college. The school has since dropped that requirement. Lucky me.

I think you're maybe comparing apples and oranges. 60 semester credits (2 years) is a typical core program length for nursing programs, ADN or BSN. An ADN is typically about a year of pre-requisites followed by 2 years of program. A BSN is typically also about a year of prerequisites, about 2 years of core program (typically with an additional credit load of a quarter or less) and about a year or less worth of general electives.

If your BSN core program was 120 credits that would mean there were 4 years of core program which start to finish would mean it would take about 6 years to get a BSN if done about as fast as possible.

It seems unlikely that you really did 120 credits in the same amount of time it would have otherwise taken to do 60 credits my taking more courses, you'd be doing a double load.

[PG2018]

I think you're maybe comparing apples and oranges. 60 semester credits (2 years) is a typical core program length for nursing programs, ADN or BSN. An ADN is typically about a year of pre-requisites followed by 2 years of program. A BSN is typically also about a year of prerequisites, about 2 years of core program (typically with an additional credit load of a quarter or less) and about a year or less worth of general electives.

If your BSN core program was 120 credits that would mean there were 4 years of core program which start to finish would mean it would take about 6 years to get a BSN if done about as fast as possible.

It seems unlikely that you really did 120 credits in the same amount of time it would have otherwise taken to do 60 credits my taking more courses, you'd be doing a double load.

As I said, "...the BSN was 125 credit hours if you were entering as a first time college student..." That's eight semesters or two per academic year for four years. The first four semesters' credits (which I had already done in another academic pursuit) were general education/university core along with nursing prerequisite studies followed by four semesters of credits in nursing (the ones I had to take). I never alluded to taking 125 hours in four semesters. I did, however, state that I finished the nursing classes required for the BSN (which I listed above) in the same amount of time it takes to complete the nursing classes required for the AS (listed above as well).

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

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?

Education is useful only to a certain point. Almost 50% of workers with a bachelors are now in jobs that don't require a degree! The student loans still have to be paid back regardless of the outcome. In my experience attractiveness and personality trump education and experience many times in the real world!

Granted nursing is science based and it makes sense to support the BSN. Employers could do that by offering student loan debt relief to present nurses and true student loan reimbursement for RN-BSN like the VA already does! But this will not happen because hospitals are a business and nursing is considered an expense, not the valuable and important basis of a hospital that it is!

I do believe that NP's at the bedside would improve nursing care, but I doubt the hospitals would be willing to pay them what their worth! Most NP's went back to school to do more than work at the bedside, to have greater autonomy and respect and to use their brains and not their bodies! I just can't see MSN RN's at the bedside except due to a glut of nurses where this was the only job they could get.

Ultimately it's all about supply and demand. I read about a program in Florida that was training doctors, yes, doctors to be RN's! Foreign doctors that wanted to come to America would enter the program to be trained as RN's as a way to get into the country. It is difficult and costly to work in America as a foreign trained doctor, due to the hoops thrown up to keep competition down! I've read of Filipino doctors going back to school for RN to get out of their country!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I've read of Filipino doctors going back to school for RN to get out of their country!

Yep. One of my coworkers was a dentist in the Philippines. Now she is working as an RN alongside the rest of us.

[MunoRN, RN]

As I said, "...the BSN was 125 credit hours if you were entering as a first time college student..." That's eight semesters or two per academic year for four years. The first four semesters' credits (which I had already done in another academic pursuit) were general education/university core along with nursing prerequisite studies followed by four semesters of credits in nursing (the ones I had to take). I never alluded to taking 125 hours in four semesters. I did, however, state that I finished the nursing classes required for the BSN (which I listed above) in the same amount of time it takes to complete the nursing classes required for the AS (listed above as well).

I think the confusion is that you compared BSN to ADN as being 125 vs 60 credits, even though the 125 credits includes pre-requisites and the 60 does not. Both have similar pre-requisites (BSN programs often include statistics as well as different chem requirements, although so do many ADN programs), these prerequisites total about a year for both types of programs. A 60 credit ADN program which includes a year of pre-reqs in that total would only leave a year of nursing program. I've dealt with accreditation bodies in the past and in my experience it's not possible to get accredited with a program that is only 30 semester credits long (that's usually an LPN program length.

If you're saying the BSN core nursing classes (everything after the pre-reqs) took as long to do as the ADN core nursing classes than that sounds more accurate. Your statements earlier seemed to imply that there were many more nursing classes in the BSN programs (apparently about a year's worth).

In general, the difference between a BSN education and an ADN education is a leadership class, a community health class (usually about 3 quarter credits each), often statistics as a pre-req and occasionally an o. chem series as a pre-req, and then about a year of general electives (in my case a year of sailing, ultimate frisbee, and classes on books I had already in HS).

[PG2018]

I think the confusion is that you compared BSN to ADN as being 125 vs 60 credits, even though the 125 credits includes pre-requisites and the 60 does not. Both have similar pre-requisites (BSN programs often include statistics as well as different chem requirements, although so do many ADN programs), these prerequisites total about a year for both types of programs. A 60 credit ADN program which includes a year of pre-reqs in that total would only leave a year of nursing program. I've dealt with accreditation bodies in the past and in my experience it's not possible to get accredited with a program that is only 30 semester credits long (that's usually an LPN program length.

If you're saying the BSN core nursing classes (everything after the pre-reqs) took as long to do as the ADN core nursing classes than that sounds more accurate. Your statements earlier seemed to imply that there were many more nursing classes in the BSN programs (apparently about a year's worth).

In general, the difference between a BSN education and an ADN education is a leadership class, a community health class (usually about 3 quarter credits each), often statistics as a pre-req and occasionally an o. chem series as a pre-req, and then about a year of general electives (in my case a year of sailing, ultimate frisbee, and classes on books I had already in HS).

You got a year of general electives?! How nice. My first bachelor's degree had 40something hours of mandatory core curriculum. With a major, required minor, and sundries I never got close to two semesters worth of electives.

Remember, a bachelor's degree even a BSN, is about becoming educated to be both a better professional and an enlightened person in general. All bachelor's programs require coursework that mirrors what we take in high school much like some of the courses I've taken toward my MSN/NP are the same as some of those I took in the BSN with one even using the same book. An LPN that worked for me often in med-surg was shooting for the LPN-RN program at a nearby college lamented one night saying, "I don't need history to be a nurse." Even the AS requires some general education which is GREAT.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

I can see hospitals saying "MSN preferred" but I think people are freaking out a little soon.

ANA's been calling for BSN as entry level for how many years (over 40)?

Magnet's been working towards increasing BSNs for how long now?

I'll put my $5 on the table that maybe maybe things might change decades from now. As it is, I'm thinking BSN as entry level is still going to be a stretch.

[MunoRN, RN]

You got a year of general electives?! How nice. My first bachelor's degree had 40something hours of mandatory core curriculum. With a major, required minor, and sundries I never got close to two semesters worth of electives.

Remember, a bachelor's degree even a BSN, is about becoming educated to be both a better professional and an enlightened person in general. All bachelor's programs require coursework that mirrors what we take in high school much like some of the courses I've taken toward my MSN/NP are the same as some of those I took in the BSN with one even using the same book. An LPN that worked for me often in med-surg was shooting for the LPN-RN program at a nearby college lamented one night saying, "I don't need history to be a nurse." Even the AS requires some general education which is GREAT.

I was trying to be generous to the BSN by allowing for the general electives, which supposedly is one of the main reasons why BSN should be mandatory, to be a year's worth of "enlightening", but you're right, it's probably less valuable than I tried to give it credit for.

I'm all for encouraging well rounded, enlightened nurses. I disagree that getting a bachelor's degree is the only or even the best way to achieve that.

There were 12 years between my first bachelors degree and nursing school which were certainly enlightening and contributed to me being more well rounded. Compared to those 12 years of life experience, my bachelors degree electives made an almost immeasurably small contribution. So then why shouldn't all nurses be required to spend 12 years doing random things before they are allowed to start nursing school?

My previous bachelors degree has likely helped my nursing practice, so why are nurses allowed to practice without a BSN plus another bachelors degree?

Speaking of enlightenment, LSD is often argued to make people more enlightened, why should anyone allowed to be a nurse who hasn't taken LSD?