Masters Program - Clinical Nurse Leader

[Robin.Hood1986]

Hi Guys!

I am planning to apply to a masters nursing program with an emphasis on leadership right now and I am wondering how I should answer the question "Why do you want to become a nurse?"

I understand as a BSN RN you would generally highlight the patient care and being hands on aspect. However, the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) also addresses leadership skills with an opportunity into management (according to admissions). Therefore, should I discuss the management aspect of nursing/health field as well? And would I miss the entire purpose of the PS if I choose to only focus on the patient care/hands on etc. aspect? Please advise.

Btw, the school I am writing this for is USF. It's there Masters Entry MSN CLN program.

Thanks!

[FutureNurseInfo]

So, just to clarify, upon graduating from this program you will be both an RN and a CNL? In either case, I think you should address both the patient care and leadership/management.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Truth?? Entry level MSN will not provide you with any sort of advanced qualification for an entry level nursing job, so that CNL will be pretty worthless. You'll be competing with all the other new grads for exactly the same positions. In nursing, you can't "lead" until you have at least achieved basic professional competence - it would be ludicrous to assume responsibility for things you have never done, let alone evaluating & supporting the competency of subordinates... and that is the (professional and legal) accountability of nurse leaders.

No matter what your entry-level degree is, you'll still have to undergo a period in which you transition from student to practicing nurse. Nurse Residency programs are considered to be the best route for this to happen. You may want to get some input from healthcare organizations - how do they feel about hiring entry-level MSNs? How many have they actually hired? Hiring managers in my organization tend to actively avoid them due to previous issues - usually described as not "fitting in" with the rest of their new grad cohort. We also have objective data (based on a standardized clinical assessment process) that e-l MSNs are not as well prepared as their BSN or ABSN colleagues.

It would be a shame to invest in a more expensive option only to discover that it is a disadvantage when it comes time to look for that all important first job.

[AliNajaCat]

Wait.... you're going to enter a clinical nurse leadership MN program and you aren't even a nurse yet? No matter what they call it, somebody who has never worked a day as a licensed graduate nurse will never be hired as a nurse manager/leader. For what it's worth some of us are old enough to remember when they told us BSN students we could expect to be managers at graduation. Although some of us rolled our eyes at that and never agreed with it for a minute, there were some of our classmates who were crushed when they realized how ludicrous the rest of the world knew that was.

It might be better to position yourself as a new grad who recognizes she needs practical nursing experience but whose long-term goal of working in a leadership position led her to take this CNL course of study to have in her back pocket, so to speak, to inform your ongoing learning as a staff nurse. This knowledge will always be there, enriched by a few years of actual practice, making her ready to advance when possible or appropriate.

[Robin.Hood1986]

Thanks for the various responses. I'll be taking your responses into consideration.

[Robin.Hood1986]

You make a good point but in short I highly doubt a respectable school such as USF and various other schools would offer a MSN program for none nursing BSNs if they knew students wouldn't get hired. That would be a serious damage to their credibility.

[elkpark]

You make a good point but in short I highly doubt a respectable school such as USF and various other schools would offer a MSN program for none nursing BSNs if they knew students wouldn't get hired. That would be a serious damage to their credibility.

Oh, the graduates can "get hired," but you'll be competing with BSN grads (and ADN grads, for that matter) for the same entry level RN positions. The CNL degree won't give you any significant advantage until you have some clinical experience to go with it. And HouTx is correct there are some organizations around the country in which an entry-level MSN is a disadvantage, period. The schools love these programs (and I have my own "paranoid conspiracy theory" about why ...), but attitudes out in the real world are not uniformly positive.

Best wishes for your journey.

[Jules A, MSN]

That particular degree is one of my least favorite in the multiple collage of BS nursing options. It was a biggie for a couple of years before NP fever took over and the schools decided they could make even more money cranking out incompetent prescribers. The CNL new grads I worked with were woefully unprepared for practice, had the attitude they were there to lead when in fact they were hired in the position of a lowly new grad floor nurse. They in general were rather disgruntled to realize that after shelling out the big bucks for graduate courses when in fact 2 years of them were simply BSN undergraduate courses with a hefty self-inflated price tag that they would be stuck learning how to be a nurse from a lowly ADN like myself who was in no mood to be delegated to by an inexperienced nurse who hadn't ever given an injection. IMO a BSN with some experience and then a focused Masters tract depending where your talent and interest lies after actually gaining a clue as to what you will be managing as a "leader" is more cost effective and practical. Good luck.

PS Great Avatar, Akita? I can't seem to make it any bigger to get a good look.

[klone, MSN, RN]

You make a good point but in short I highly doubt a respectable school such as USF and various other schools would offer a MSN program for none nursing BSNs if they knew students wouldn't get hired. That would be a serious damage to their credibility.

Trust me. Nobody is going to hire you for a leadership position without nursing experience, except perhaps as an ADON at a nursing home, where RNs are typically thrust into leadership positions over the LPNs and CNAs all the time.

[llg, PhD, RN]

I am OK with the entry-level MSN programs. I have worked with some graduates of such programs who were excellent nurses. However, they all entered the nursing job market as entry-level staff nurses, just like BSN grads.

But ... after a year or two of actual staff nurse experience, they were ready to move up to the next level a little sooner than their non-MSN colleagues.

So ... as long as you have realistic expectations about the types of jobs you will probably get after graduation, I see nothing wrong with going to an entry-level MSN program. An entry-level CNL is probably what I would do if I were changing careers and coming into nursing with a BS in another field.