Maybe our outlook isn't too gloomy

elkpark · Sep 23, 2015

I've been thinking. Is there really a "good" nursing school? If so, what is good? It makes me wonder. For examples, does developing a care plan with efficiency or mixing meds qualify? In hindsight, there wasn't a lot covered in nursing that I wanted to know. I'm a fool, but I legitimately went in thinking I was going to learn to diagnose and treat stuff. Nursing doesn't do that so my expectations weren't met. I always felt like the faculty were ego-inflated idiots, but in reality they had no clue - no conception - of what it is I wanted to learn and do. The only classes I liked were pathophysiology and pharmacology, and I recall sitting through them thinking they were surface skimming at best.
My school had really high NCLEX pass rates, but this was mostly because the graduation rate is really low. We had a 31% pass rate in my cohort. Of those, I bet half could've passed the NCLEX after the first semester.

Clearly you went into nursing school with unrealistic expectations, so it's not surprising that you felt you had a poor experience.

There are good nursing schools, and plenty of them. I went to a hospital-based diploma school that provided an excellent nursing education, and prepared us v. well to enter practice and excel. The school's unofficial motto (and goal, and reputation all over the Southeastern US) was that you could take a Presby grad, drop (her) down anywhere nursing was happening, and (she) could get the job done. That's certainly been my personal experience over the years in my own career.

I attended a BSN completion program (a B&M program at a state university) that, while it didn't do much to change or improve my clinical practice, provided a high quality and worthwhile education in the courses involved, and provided a good foundation and preparation for graduate school.

I attended an excellent graduate program with a demanding, intense, and rigorous program that prepared me v. well as a child psychiatric clinical nurse specialist.

At this point, I've encountered more nursing instructors than I can count, from BSN-prepared clinical instructors to PhDs, in all clinical specialties, and I can't think of a single one I would characterize as an "ego-inflated idiot." Some were better instructors than others, but they were all competent, highly skilled, hard-working, and sincere in their desire and effort to provide a high-quality nursing education. They all also taught in programs that expected and enforced a high level of performance by the faculty.

It might help if people did more research, and were pickier about what they were getting into, before committing to a school, or left if they felt they weren't getting a good education once they have started. Poor quality schools continue to exist because people continue to sign up and pay them tuition. If they couldn't get enough students, they would have to either make changes or shut down. I encounter too many (IMO) people on this site who signed up for the quickest, cheapest, and/or most convenient nursing program they could find, or simply enrolled at the first school that they came to without questioning. If that's the approach people are taking to investing a big chunk of time, money, and effort in their futures, they shouldn't be terribly surprised if it doesn't turn out well for them.

I would love to see the poorer quality schools get shut down. IMO, we have far too many nursing programs in the country, and would be better served by having fewer schools with more uniform quality (I would particularly love to see all the proprietary "schools" shut down). But TPTB in nursing (and the state legislatures) have obviously decided, long ago, to go with guantity rather than quality, so, unfortunately, it's up to individuals to look out for their own interests.

synaptic · Sep 23, 2015

Its hard not to sign up for the easiest for profit institution when all the ads on this site proclaim ASN to DNP in three and a half days :)

We can do a quick semi-related comparison

When buying a new car you get a warrantee and lemon laws are also in effect.

When getting a college degree there is absolutely no guarantee for anything. Colleges are not required to back up any of their claims with anything.

Yet people will spend days on days hunting for their new car, reading, consumer reports, etc.

When it comes to picking out a college degree the only thing they look at is how much work is involved, maybe the cost (LOL at people that spend 100k for an fnp degree) and if they can get accepted.

No wonder our country is going down hill we are a bunch of lazy, entitled slackers. Our founding fathers would be disappointed in us.

PG2018 · Sep 23, 2015

Clearly you went into nursing school with unrealistic expectations, so it's not surprising that you felt you had a poor experience.
There are good nursing schools, and plenty of them. I went to a hospital-based diploma school that provided an excellent nursing education, and prepared us v. well to enter practice and excel. The school's unofficial motto (and goal, and reputation all over the Southeastern US) was that you could take a Presby grad, drop (her) down anywhere nursing was happening, and (she) could get the job done. That's certainly been my personal experience over the years in my own career.
I attended a BSN completion program (a B&M program at a state university) that, while it didn't do much to change or improve my clinical practice, provided a high quality and worthwhile education in the courses involved, and provided a good foundation and preparation for graduate school.
I attended an excellent graduate program with a demanding, intense, and rigorous program that prepared me v. well as a child psychiatric clinical nurse specialist.
At this point, I've encountered more nursing instructors than I can count, from BSN-prepared clinical instructors to PhDs, in all clinical specialties, and I can't think of a single one I would characterize as an "ego-inflated idiot." Some were better instructors than others, but they were all competent, highly skilled, hard-working, and sincere in their desire and effort to provide a high-quality nursing education. They all also taught in programs that expected and enforced a high level of performance by the faculty.
It might help if people did more research, and were pickier about what they were getting into, before committing to a school, or left if they felt they weren't getting a good education once they have started. Poor quality schools continue to exist because people continue to sign up and pay them tuition. If they couldn't get enough students, they would have to either make changes or shut down. I encounter too many (IMO) people on this site who signed up for the quickest, cheapest, and/or most convenient nursing program they could find, or simply enrolled at the first school that they came to without questioning. If that's the approach people are taking to investing a big chunk of time, money, and effort in their futures, they shouldn't be terribly surprised if it doesn't turn out well for them.
I would love to see the poorer quality schools get shut down. IMO, we have far too many nursing programs in the country, and would be better served by having fewer schools with more uniform quality (I would particularly love to see all the proprietary "schools" shut down). But TPTB in nursing (and the state legislatures) have obviously decided, long ago, to go with guantity rather than quality, so, unfortunately, it's up to individuals to look out for their own interests.

Well, one should anticipate that a state university is a quality institution. Of course, that's not the case, but it goes back to enforced expectations. But yeah, you're right, I entered nursing believing I would learn (and do) things differently than what I did. In hindsight thought, what could they have taught well. There wasn't anything that really shocked me. There were no wow days. I always found it peculiar that most of the staff taught nurses to be nurses but made every effort they could to avoid doing any real nursing work. That made me infer from the outset that nursing was a less than desirable as a career choice because all of my faculty taught to avoid "the bedside." Of course, one had been a hospital CEO and merely had an undergraduate nursing degree. She really didn't know or care, but she was my favorite faculty member because she voiced things that I thought were useful. Interestingly, she was the least favorite of all of the young girl nurse students.

Dranger · Sep 23, 2015

The problem with is that we (as in nurses) hate saying no. Whether it be BSN, diploma, ADN, LPN to ADN there are a million ways to enter nursing and anyone conceivably can work their way up regardless of grades if you have the cash or look for easy admit programs. This is not to say I think any less of ADN or diploma, its just we have never figured out an efficient pathway to streamline schooling even though its been brought up on a national level multiple times.

The same disjunction goes for APRNs. I think you would have to look VERY hard to find someone who could not get into ONE NP program. The pre-reqs are non existent and most admission standards are lax at best.

MD/DO, PA, dental or even PT schools have no problem saying no to unqualified students it's just nursing that can't seem to figure it out. Allowing cash grabbing for-profit school regardless of how strenuous or difficult the programs are only stirs the pot.

synaptic · Sep 23, 2015

My wife is in med school, and it was a lot harder to get into her program than my program, even though they are at the same school. I mean a lot harder. Plus her material is actually difficult, not the slightly salty water we had to walk through to get our degrees. Glad I chose to follow her through med school also ( a year or two behind) but at least the barrier to entry will make sure our market will probably not ever be saturated and I won't have to worry about sadly managed national nursey nurse groups with no backbone to maintain the credibility of the license.

Plus, you know that other professions aren't going to take us as seriously when they find out we can get our degree from some online school with all open book tests. While (insert peoples names here) programs may not have been like that, they do exist, and that will be the standard we will all be held to. At least until we have a chance to prove ourselves on a person- to person basis.

elkpark · Sep 24, 2015

Plus, you know that other professions aren't going to take us as seriously when they find out we can get our degree from some online school with all open book tests. While (insert peoples names here) programs may not have been like that, they do exist, and that will be the standard we will all be held to. At least until we have a chance to prove ourselves on a person- to person basis.

I agree completely that the poor quality programs hurt all of us and diminish the value of the good quality programs by association.

strawberryluv, BSN, RN · Sep 24, 2015

I have no problem with some of the for-profit nursing programs out there. Some of the ones I know of that graduate students graduate really bright students. I've worked with some nurses of these for-profit nursing programs and they are good at their job. I realized that their graduating class is also very small. Though a lot of nursing hopefuls apply to these programs, I am of the opinion that very few of them graduate. My former coworker graduated with a class of only 15 students, that was down from 100+ students to start with.

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Oct 1, 2015

I'm a fool, but I legitimately went in thinking I was going to learn to diagnose and treat stuff. Nursing doesn't do that so my expectations weren't met. I always felt like the faculty were ego-inflated idiots, but in reality they had no clue - no conception - of what it is I wanted to learn and do. The only classes I liked were pathophysiology and pharmacology, and I recall sitting through them thinking they were surface skimming at best.

Well your expectations were not met because they were unrealistic.

Nurses do NOT diagnose and treat.

guest769224 · Oct 1, 2015

Nurses do NOT diagnose and treat.

Nurse Practitioners do.

synaptic · Oct 4, 2015

pretty much it comes down to this: if we are to have the same authority as the docs, and it only takes 2-3 years (sometimes less) for us to get this status, the programs should be supremely difficult, require 100 hours per week of studying, be very competitive to get into, and have 3 board exams for us to be able to prescribe.

unfortunately we do not meet any of these, no wonder why docs lol at us.