My mother is a Diploma nurse

[grad*student]

She's currently retired, but worked for more than 30 years at the bedside. She's a diploma trained RN, I'm a BSN. My mother is more of a nurse than I'll ever be, she was and is absolutely awesome. I turned to her so many times w/ questions about how things should be done or situations handled. A few nurses who worked w/ my Mom have told me that she was/is absolutely The Best, a true professional. She never misses a vein, she can "sense" when something is wrong when entering a pt's room (Benner's "expert" nurse), and on top of doing all that's required by us nurses in just doing our jobs, she always groomed/bathed and comforted her patients in order to make them feel cared for. I never had time to braid my patient's hair, but my mother would do these little extra things for patients. She feels that the field of nursing has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, in that nurses no longer have time to provide the care patients really need, but that's another story...

I can't stand any of these diploma vs. ADN vs. BSN debates. It's all just a bunch of garbage. I'm posting to this forum just to get this off my chest, and to brag about my mother. My mother's training was more rigorous than mine, though she didn't end up w/ a bachelor's (ex. she would attend some classes w/ the med students in her program, while BSN programs are strictly taught by nursing faculty who have replaced practical instruction w/ ridiculous "theory"; she witnessed real autopsies, while I dissected a cat and a few other animals in pre-req, etc...). And the type of nurse one becomes really depends on personal characteristics, like compassion, attitude, character, intelligence, etc...

Ok, thanks for listening.