I am having trouble understanding why an ADN RN needs to go back to college for a BSN? I've heard because there is a lower mortality rate with BSN nurses because they have higher critical thinking skills...Really? Basic RN's, wether ADN or BSN, were trained the necessary skills to perform at the bedside and to pass the NCLEX required to become and RN. So why all the critical thinking skills that are required all of a sudden? The duty of the bedside registered nurse is to assess and prove assessment feedback to the physician. He or she said physician is to analyze the data provided by the RN and give further direction from that point. There is no further obligation in the nursing process that states we must recommend to the physician what medication the patient needs to be prescribed as we have absolutely NO prescriptive authority OR obligation. We nurses are furthermore not obligated to formulate a diagnosis for the physician which would be beyond the scope of practice also. The scope of nursing actually ends with assessment and reporting to the ultimate responsible authority. The nurse then is to carry out the specific orders provided by the physician. I can already hear you diva's saying, "but your the pt advocate", and yes we are but we have limitations. Once we hit our limitations it is the responsibility of the physician to do his or her job and stop trying to force everything on the nurses. Nurses are not here to take up the slack of the physician. The physicians need to become the professionals they claim to be and stop forgetting orders and hospitals stop forcing the nurses to catch the mistakes of a physician because the hospital can't get the physician to comply.
All in all, there seems to be a stretch of nursing to become the physicians...well where is the pay and title change? Every order that a nurse corrects should be noted and send to the medical board. If a nurse was to make mistakes it can be reported to the board...Physicians should be held accountable at the same level.
So my take on the BSN requirement is BS.
Anyone else know why we must have a BSN? Why is it that a ADN can no longer fit the position?
