As someone who is about to complete medical school, and who went through nursing school for a BSN, the knowledge gap between the two is exponential. In light of recent arguments made by militant nurses who argue that the required nursing courses to complete an associates degree or BSN is just as good as medical school. First you take an A&P, 101 course on microbiology, a introductory 12 week course in "orgo/gen chem, Biochem" all combined superficially in 12 weeks, 12 week course in Pathophysiology 101.
Looking back those courses, they were very superficial at the amount of knowledge required to pass. Those science courses were no where near the complexity that medical schools dig into, where things get broken down into the mechanism of protein structures that allow them to function a certain way. With out understanding the complexities of the inner workings of what actually occur at the cellular level, you can't begin to understand what went wrong when the ALGORITHM they are trained to follow doesn't go according to plan. Then comes the nursing courses, and the "clinicals" that they do. The actual nursing courses were good enough to understand and complete NURSING tasks. They were not good enough to treat and effectively manage complex disease, but when I was a nursing student at that time I thought I knew just as much as a doctor, and I was dead wrong. The clinicals were a joke, you passed out meds,maybe gave a few injections, changed wet diapers on incontinent patients, and followed the orders given by the doctor.
I am all about advanced education, but there is NO DIFFERENCE in the fundamental knowledge between a RN VS BSN other than some "nursing research courses and fluff to get fancy titles like clinical nurse specialist, or infection control specialist" but the core principles are EXACTLY THE SAME. So when they claim they have a BSN not an associates in nursing, there is NO difference, and I dare you to find me a BSN who would say there is.
Something else that ticks me off I hear from nurses trying to be MD's is " I have 15+ years in the ICU, ER, or MED/SURG floor," that counts as more education like a residency. Good for you! But, when I worked as a nurses assistant for 5+ years I didn't claim to know or be equivalent to a RN just because I saw what they did, and helped them carry out orders. How would NURSES like it if LPN's claimed to be EQUIVALENT to RN's/BSN's? Probably wouldn't go well. I am not knocking down the profession of nursing, what I am annoyed with is NURSES/NP's claiming to be equivalent to MD's. You are not, you were trained in the NURSING SCOPE of practice.
I love nurses, yes I would trust a seasoned ICU nurse's opinion vs a Freshly minted MD out of med school in July as an Intern, but I guarantee that by the end of 3-4 months of intern year, his knowledge base will increase exponentially to surpass that of any ICU nurse due to his knowledge base gained from 8 years of education that doesn't stop during residency, and now applying it daily as a intern. So nurses I beg you to please just work within your scope as a nurse, and stop trying to claim equivalency through studies "propaganda" funded by the militant nurses association.
I'm sorry you found the humanistic approach of the nursing scope too much to handle. I wish you the best in medicine and hope you find what you need from it. Hopefully it makes you feel more adequate.
I didn't post it just to get a reaction. I seriously want to see the alternate viewpoint. Do nurses actually try to compare their 2-4 year (post-high school) training with the 11-15 year (post-high school) training of a doctor?
There is no other viewpoint oh great and mighty med school grad! We throw ourselves at your feet and will only do what the doctor tells us to.
You made the comment that nurses try to compare themselves to doctors, so back up your claim. They do teach about evidence-based research in med school don't they?
Collaborative relationships come from mutual respect and teamwork. I hope you do not convey to the nurses trying to save your patient that they don't have a lick of sense because you went to med school and they didn't. If you do, you will have an interesting career.
I would be curious to see how much of those basic sciences an MD retains after 5 years of practice. I brought up a biochem question to one of the docs once and they just laughed thinking I would assume they still knew that content.
I didn't post it just to get a reaction. I seriously want to see the alternate viewpoint. Do nurses actually try to compare their 2-4 year (post-high school) training with the 11-15 year (post-high school) training of a doctor?
I'm embarrassed for you 😳
If anything, NPs and MDs are compared and contrasted, but even then, everyone knows they are two different titles for a reason... Nursing vs Medicine, this topic has been covered on AN countless times. You're annoying.
The opening post is simply a copy/paste of the opening post of that SDN thread I linked to earlier. "MedStudentNotRN" did not write that post (which is from a year ago in that other thread). Also, amusingly, the person that wrote it claimed that he was about to finish medical school, whereas MedStudentNotRN (who posts on SDN as "ratiocinate", who posted a link in the SDN thread to allnurses, though he now edited that post) has not even applied to medical school yet, according to his posts on SDN!
Don't feed the troll, nothing to see here, the OP is based on a false premise anyway.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
I have noticed that it always seems to be the pre-med and med students who feel the need to come over here and puff their chests. They must have very fragile egos.
OTOH, the bonafide physicians seem to appreciate the importance of the nurse's role and the concept of collegiality. Like the honey badger, they don't give a ****, particularly about pissing matches and feeling the need to feel superior to an RN.
How would NURSES like it if LPN's claimed to be EQUIVALENT to RN's.
You do realize the N in LPN stands for nurse so this statement contradicts itself. Both are nurses with different levels of licensure. Are they equivalent? No. Are they both still NURSES? Yes.
Second stop saying RN vs BSN. RN is the license and BSN or associates is the degree level.
Third congrats on graduating Med school, let me know when you get finally get out of student debt (probably around the same time I retire).
I love the physicians that I work with. One worked as a CNA through med school and is married to a RN. The other was a x-Ray tech for 10 years before going to med school. They know how much the nurses and ancillary staff do for them and appreciate us for it. They actually laughed when I had them read your post btw and said you have a lot maturing to do in your residency. Word of advise from them "don't piss off the nurses because they can make your life hell". They also said if you work hospital you'll be the resident that seems to always get the 0300 calls from the floor nurses just so they can wake you up. I wish you luck and hope for your sake you don't act like this at work.
Carpediem1012, BSN, RN
315 Posts
I'm sorry you found the humanistic approach of the nursing scope too much to handle. I wish you the best in medicine and hope you find what you need from it. Hopefully it makes you feel more adequate.