LPN advocacy

[abooker]

Hi,

I'm enrolled in a bi-level community college program. I passed the NCLEX-PN after the first diploma program year, and am now working on my second year so I can earn the associate's degree and be eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN. I'm currently employed part-time as an LPN. Last year, I was a tech.

Are the rest of you encountering RNs, in real life and in the literature, who seem to view LPNs as lowly worms who might one day be fortunate enough to transform into beautiful RN butterflies? (Sorry, guys, I couldn't think of a more gender-friendly analogy).

My trends textbook, for instance, talks about how the term "nurse" should be reserved exclusively for RNs, and how the BSN should be the minimum qualification for nursing practice. In light of the nursing shortage, I think this would be a bad thing. I have not yet found a successful way to open a dialogue with the "butterflies" because of the power differential between us. They change the subject, or tell me I should get my BSN. I understand they might think these things are true, but the purpose of even mentioning this to me when they *know* I'm an LPN and won't have a BSN when I pass the NCLEX-RN seems just plain mean.

How are the rest of you dealing with colleagues who feel compelled to "educate" LPNs and techs about the superiority of registered nursing? I can't think about this rationally. Every time I encounter it, I feel my IQ drop ...

[jamangel]

I work in the VA system that really put their RN's on pedestals. There's not any differences in the organization based on a 2yr or 4yr degree when it comes to being a charge nurse. The difference comes when you want to get into management positions. At the VA an associates is just the "glass ceiling" as I've heard it referred.

Personally, you do what makes you happy and nothing else matters.

But back to being an LPN and dealing wth RN superiority complexes. After 10 years of being a nurse and the types of nursing I've done, they couldn't lay that trip on me. Now I am pursuing my RN but when I decided to go for my LPN i was just running the streets with my friends in my mom's house working a dead end job. My mom didn't want me to waste my life. She gave me a ultimatum go to school or look for a real job or get out of her house. So I flipped through the tech school book and decided "hmm I could make a decent living at this." My point is that for me being a LPN was just something to do but if I'd known that nursing would become my "thing" then I would have skipped right over LPN and went to RN.

Now with family commitments I had to take my classes here and there and now I'm just about ready to do this all over again (damn I hate clinicals).

The other thing is that I've busted my behind in nursing and I've learned alot and I'm quite confident in my skills to even worry about a RN who might think to pop their lips about what I need to do. There are a lot of wonderful RN's without that complex but there are a lot of wonderful LPN's with plenty skills that have had to teach other RN's what our experience has taught us-and not just inexperienced Rn's mind you but supposedly experienced RN's.

This is not a RN bash because I'm friends with plenty and will be one in just over a year. I like to think that my experience as a LPN has not been wasted. I have alot to offer.