Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...

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Just kidding.  This was a debate being had only 3 years ago.  It was right before a combination of covid and karma gorilla pimp slapped the greed out of the corporation crooks who sought to profit from this practice and justified it with a "magnet certification".  Hospitals are generally 75% travelers (no BSN required) and 20% new grad staff nurses, and 5% experienced staff nurses.  Hospitals used to require a BSN to work in their prestigious facilities, but not anymore.  Now they are letting LPN's work in the hospital again, but it doesn't mean LPNs are taking those jobs, I'm sure they most certainly are not because the job postings never go away.  They sit there on the job board for 30+ days and collect the dust that is a byproduct of cryptocurrency mining. Recruiters are importing foreign nurses as fast as they can get them over here.  "Do you have a pulse and a nursing license?"  "I no speak very much english..."  "Perfect!  Come to America, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  You'll get better at English eventually.  Everybody else does."  The nurses who actually enabled this crap should be ashamed of themselves.  We shouldn't have let it get as bad as it did.  Too late now.

 

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My favorite part of this article is the comment all the way at the bottom.

We killed ourselves on the front lines trying to contain the pandemic and made more money than we ever could imagine as travelers, but bearing witness to this was what actually made it all worth it.

"Using it as a weedout is going to be its own reward when someone scratches their head and wonders "Gee, now that we got rid of all those ADNs, how come stuff isn't getting done anymore, and everything is falling apart, and we're so criminally short-staffed 24/7/365?"

But until manglement (great word, I'm sooooo stealing it) breaks suction and pulls their collective heads out, that light will never dawn."

 

http://head-nurse.blogspot.com/2015/01/yeah-no-im-having-some-thoughts-about.html?m=1

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I have to agree.  My BSN is from a highly regarded, major university and it was complete fluff-100%.   If I had written drivel for the majority of my papers, as long as the APA formatting was comma, period, quotation mark, citation ….perfect, then the content of the writing meant absolutely nothing.  In the end, I shelled out $25,000, added absolutely nothing to my clinical skillset, and went back to doing the same job I had done for 25 years!  Nursing academia at its finest!

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Specializes in oncology.

The process of writing papers includes finding credible resources to support your ideas, developing your ideas from an introduction to a conclusion and supporting your references so that a reader can find the primary source. Academic papers were never intended to improve an individuals skills, rather they support the theory that continues the student to grow in their skillset. 

Sometimes, yes, there is no growth in this process, either due to the limitations of the initial idea or the use of current knowledge to promote future knowledge in the field. This can be extremely frustrating to the writer/student. Writing papers has never been proposed as a solid way to change how someone views/does their job, only to suggest a change in their point of view or a way to grow. I am sorry that academia failed you in this regard. 

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.

I actually rather liked my BSN program, but it was 20 years ago with in-person classes where one was able to interact with fellow students. I think I learned as much practical knowledge from classmates as I did from assignments. @londonflo makes a very good point about the value of reading and researching credible resources to formulate and develop ideas. I also found great value in my ethics class, which I still use, and my systems class. 

The price of college has become ridiculous of course, and employers need to step up with tuition assistance if they require degrees. 

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Specializes in oncology.
1 minute ago, nursej22 said:

but it was 20 years ago with in-person classes where one was able to interact with fellow students.

You get what I was saying! I loved learning about other nurses' feelings and really appreciated their critiques of my presentations. I wonder if you get out of it what you put into it?

I think a lot is lost with 'message boards' in online programs....but that is what the students of today want.

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Specializes in oncology.
On 11/19/2021 at 11:50 AM, morelostthanfound said:

In the end, I shelled out $25,000, added absolutely nothing to my clinical skillset, and went back to doing the same job I had done for 25 years!

Was this during the time Atal Gawande worked with WHO to develop the surgical safety checklist? My son was a resident with Gawande and it was an exciting time to see it implemented throughout the US and World! WHO sent them both all over the world to introduce it. In addition to that my son was involved with the introduction of pulse oximetry in third world countries and measuring the improvements in patient health following surgeries. Maybe you went for your BSN years before that. 

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    No, I have a Diploma of Nursing from long ago and later obtained my BSN in 2017 from a major, and well known midwest university.  My contention is, as the majority of nurses are employed as bedside caregivers (either acute or chronic), what would really be of benefit to them (and their patients) would be if the BSN curriculum included; advanced Pharmacology, Pharmacokinetics, higher level A & P, Health, Infection Control/Surveillance for Healthcare Professionals...  I was required to take a six month Multicultural Nursing course in which I could have just as easily read a pamphlet (ditto for the other courses).   Then there's the whole issue of nonsense APA.  Again, it mattered almost zero, nil, nada, what the content of the paper or post was as long as it was written in perfect APA.

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Specializes in oncology.
3 hours ago, morelostthanfound said:

what would really be of benefit to them (and their patients) would be if the BSN curriculum included; advanced Pharmacology, Pharmacokinetics, higher level A & P, Health, Infection Control/Surveillance for Healthcare Professionals...

Your concern is a common one. Your nursing education from your diploma program is considered to be your foundation in your 'major'. The BSN part of the degree is designed to provide the leadership component. I understand what you are saying though. The advanced pharmacotherapeutics, additional A & P etc is really reserved for a MSN degree. Nobody likes APA! LOL! But being able to cite your sources in an approved structured way is part of being an educated person. I don't know though why some faculty decide that is the most important part of a paper. The tail wagging the dog, I guess.

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2 hours ago, londonflo said:

Your concern is a common one. Your nursing education from your diploma program is considered to be your foundation in your 'major'. The BSN part of the degree is designed to provide the leadership component. I understand what you are saying though. The advanced pharmacotherapeutics, additional A & P etc is really reserved for a MSN degree. Nobody likes APA! LOL! But being able to cite your sources in an approved structured way is part of being an educated person. I don't know though why some faculty decide that is the most important part of a paper. The tail wagging the dog, I guess.

    As a career nurse of thirty years and as a travel RN, I have worked at many hospitals across the country.   I have literally known thousands of bedside nurses and can say with complete confidence, that the rank and file nurse does not cite sources, ever!  Just like care plans, APA is just superfluous gobbledygook and does nothing to provide us the clinical skills necessary to better care for our patients.  Just another example of nursing academia being totally out of touch with nursing practice.

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Specializes in oncology.
12 hours ago, morelostthanfound said:

 I have literally known thousands of bedside nurses and can say with complete confidence, that the rank and file nurse does not cite sources, ever! 

Yes you are very correct in reflecting this. , Nurses working at the bedside do not write papers. And many do not read nursing or medical journals. But when they propose new ideas, they should be able to cite whether they thought of it or they read about it somewhere. 

 

12 hours ago, morelostthanfound said:

Just another example of nursing academia being totally out of touch with nursing practice.

Nursing is not just a practice occupation but it is also a profession. If we did 'what we always did' we would never have developed as we have (although I would say our growth has been stunted through lots of resistance from hospitals). I do have to state that when I was a nursing student, there were discussions whether nursing was even a profession! I won't bore anyone with what the characteristics of 'what a profession is' but it is available on Google.

How have we grown through nursing research? (these are only my thoughts - I will agree to disagree)

Nursing development at the collegiate level has established:

-what nurses  really assess - not the medical model of Cardiac, Lungs, GI...rather the functional health patterns (Gordon)...how does the health problem effect the ability of the patient to function. Of course this will vary with the beliefs of the nurse, their setting etc.

-Management of pain beyond calling the MD for "pain medicine'.

-The operation of patient education...for example,,, 'this medication is for....etc" In oncology we do a lot of teaching on symptom management. Several studies have shown that having a nurse involved in post-discharge activities, decreases readmission for a variety of health problems

-Planning for home care. When I started in 1977, the VNA had a limited scope of involvement in the home...look at what nurses do now. In addition, patients get out of the hospital so much faster. In 1977, someone who had their gallbladder removed spent 14 days in the hospital on average!

Just examples. 

I agree APA has nothing to do with clinical management. But if nursing wanted to be equated as a profession, it needed to be out of the hospital setting and into a collegiate setting (my opinion). Before you object to my saying this, I want to add I taught almost 10 years in Diploma programs. I was very proud of our graduates. Their knowledge and abilities upon graduation were great! (no hospital orientation needed in most cases if they took a job with the parent hospital). But the hospital was calling the shots on everything spent for the students' education...(I remember by law I could only have 12 students in my clinical group....I was assigned 13...I objected...I was told "never get them all in a group where someone could count them". ..Of course I instituted a library day to limit 12 on the floor)

A basic outcome of a baccalaureate education is being able to write a paper with endnotes and citations. This applies if your major was history, psychology, sociology...etc. Heck, I had to do this in my first college English course...otherwise college was high school with ashtrays. History majors who go on to law school do not stand in front of the judge citing their papers on the US Civil War. Education graduates who go on to be School Superintendents do not recite their undergraduate papers when meeting with the school board. But that baccalaureate education, helped them discern what is rational and substantive versus hyperbole. 

I respect your opinion but hope you also respect mine.  I have stated I really don't understand the emphasis on APA some faculty have.  Complaints on APA appear here often, and I agree. But I do feel a nurse needs to be able to critically read, interpret and cite the information/data/research that helped them develop their opinions/proposal for improvement in patient care. It is best seen if the BSN student uses their interests and job area in their paper topics. And this does, in my experience, filter down and impact on their growth in knowledge base and subsequent implementation of their job. It may not have happened for you but it did for me. And if a nurse doesn't want to go on for a BSN, no one is holding a gun to their head. Let's face it, many who don't want to do it but do it for the add to their salary or for promotional purposes. The characteristics of a baccalaureate education cannot change because a student wants to learn more about a certain topic or subject. That is what CEUs are for and it is up to the nurse to investigate that topic on their own. An RN  have been educated on what to look for in determining if the presenter has the knowledge/experience to deliver authentic and accurate content. These are part of the characteristics of nursing education. 

I know I won't/change your mind. I just wanted to clarify some ideas on the value of education that I have. Having taught in Diploma, ADN and BSN programs I have totally examined the value and goals of each. BTW 2 of the BSN programs I taught in, went from Diploma to BSN. I heard many of the same comments you had but I saw first-hand how the image, knowledge skills, respect for the graduate, and  salary changed because of the equalizing their education with  baccalaureate graduates of other health care disciplines.  And I did see/hear of substantial changes on nursing floors in patient care because nurses proposed changes with the identification of other places that implemented that (and citations from the literature) . 

Look at Gwande did! Didn't that change your OR procedures? 

 

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A nurse does what a nurse has to do to stay employable. 

Going back to school at almost 50 is what I have to do to get past the BSN-only filters on the applicant tracking software and find a job when time I need to find another job, especially if I can no longer do bedside nursing and need a non-bedside job. 

Nursing is a gentrifying profession, and the barriers for entry are going up higher. I accept reality.

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