Physically Sick

Nurses Activism

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I watched many nurses give testimoney before the Pa House Subcomitte on Health on the Pennsylvania Cable Network channel tonight. There were a lot of different subjects discussed and most of the people testifying had a lot of letters behind their names. The letters are fine but I wished they would include a few people who had recently had blood on their shoes and vomit on their uniforms. Anyway, I had no problem with what any of them were saying not even the stuff about one level of entry. No problem until a representative of the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing gave testimony. I am ADN nurse and when she got done talking about us and our programs I felt like an ape in a uniform. Tell me did anyone else see it. How did her talk strike you? What did you make about those remarks about ADN programs being responsible for the drop in registration in BSN programs. Or laying the fault for the average age of a nurse being about 45 at the door of the ADN program. I do not think there is a shred of evidence for any such thing. Do you know what this woman wants? She wants all nursing students to be 18 to 22 years old and from comfortably middle class predominately white families. Why do I say that? Well she out and out made the remark about 18 to 22 year olds and if they all must go to 4 year programs(which will likely turn into 5 years) they are going to need families with money. She actually spoke as if a nurse being age 33 on graduation was a tragedy. :( ( That is how old I was when I graduated. ) I will tell you her name because I think that anyone who gives testimony on public television can be mentioned in public. It was Lynette Jack. When this woman was done testifying I felt physically sick, denigrated, disparaged and defamed. Talk about lateral violence.

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Specializes in ER, Hospice, CCU, PCU.

Well, lets see. Out of the 40+ nurses we have in our ER I think we have about 6 who have BSN's and most of them have less that 2 years experience. So what shall we do with the rest of us???

I know, we'll stop working and those 6 can see the 150+ patients we see each day, 24 hours/7days a week. How long do you think they'd last???

More importantly how many patients would die. Not because they lack in any way the skill to care for them but face it, how many 1-1 patients can one nurse handle at one time?

And of course with only 6 nurses, that makes 3 per 12 hour shift. What happens when you have a Trauma patient, a severe resp. distress pt who needs intubated and an acute MI that needs TPA all present at one time?? Wouldn't want one of them to be me.:eek:

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Oramar,

Thanks for presenting this information. This seems to me like a thinly veiled attempt to lobby for more money for the University of Pittsburgh nursing program. Makes me sick! Any where we can get a summary or review? I don't get cable :(.

Carrie

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Specializes in Perinatal/neonatal.

I can relate to your feeling after seeing Lynette Jack speak on the tv. (No, I didn't see her.) I am not convinced that the BSN program produces a better qualified direct entry level nurse. (A good friend graduated from a well known university and honestly admitted that she could not start an IV when she accepted her first position at a Rehab center in Memphis. She was the Nurse manager of that unit!) I refuse to battle the LPN-vs-ADN-vs-BSN trudgery. I am proud of myself and ALL NURSES, no matter the alma mater! We must stick together and grow together. I know I can learn things from you and I hope I can share what I know, too! I really hope that you won't let Ms. Jack get you down. She's probably not going to get that pay raise that she was expecting due to the cost conscious ADN students that have avoided her 4yr.college and their over-the-top tuition! (okay, just kidding)

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The nursing field is one of few careers where a person can earn as much or more with a diploma school education as a college degree. In my facility, education is not a factor in promotions.

I think what the nurse was getting at is why should a high school grad want to go to an expensive university when as things stand now, he or she can go to school for a year or two and work side by side with any RN for the same pay performing exactly the same duties. Nothing against you diploma nurses and Oramar I really enjoy and agree with most of your posts but not this time. I think education should matter in nursing just as it does in other professions such as teaching,engineering, etc. Kicking associate and diploma nurses out of critical care areas are not the intent of this legislation. Years of experience and expertise are important but education should count for something as it does in nearly all other professions. Now some of you are probably going to say: "I've worked with BSNs who are as dumb as dirt",etc. but the enormous effort and expense to achieve an education should be given credit in this field where at this time most of us are treated like cattle.

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I do not have any problem with plans to phase in all BSN requirments. It should be gradual and painless and no one should ever be forced. No one should be hauled into the nursing office and threatened because they are not working on a BSN. However this woman had some other agenda. Cargal and NurseAngie hinted at what it might be. I have had experience with a University Program where I was getting nasty vibes from some of the faculty. I always attibuted it to the individual. The stuff that was spewed at me sounded exactly like what I was hearing at this meeting. I realize now that the negativism aimed at ADNs is institutionalized at the educational level. I say stop it or you will get no where with any of you plans because if you keep telling us we are stupid we will not support you .

There should be a way to phase in the BSN requirment without attacking nurses that do not have them. This program is on again at 1:45 today. Maybe Karen can be of help for transcripts.

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Seven or eight people gave excellent testimoney at those hearings. Only one of them got my hackles up. I have a on going problem with focusing on the negative.

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The part of the show that raised my dander was when that hospital assoc. doctor kept referring to "system failure" in regards to med errors even when confronted with the issue of mandatory overtime by Anthony Diluca.The MD would not admit that mandatory overtime was a patient safety issue and started mouthing that crap about "we have to provide 24 hour care, we can't ration care,blah,blah blah". Hell, I AM the system were I work. I call the doctor, write the order, trancribe it, go dig up the med and either give it or give it to a nurse who will. Have I made any boo boos? Of course! When your doing three extra shifts a week against your will you most certainly do. I'm close to my fellow nurses since we have worked together a number of years and we often compare notes about our blunders. Usually we don't report ourselves due to the punative atmosphere here.These are people with high integrity and other than mistakes of a grevious nature, errors are covered up. I hope our legislators can see through the BS that these hospital administrators are trying to hand them!

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Specializes in ER, Hospice, CCU, PCU.

To Nebby Nurse : There were 14 new grads who started working together at my first job. 10 of us were from an ADN program and the other 4 were from a BSN program. This was back in the "Old Days" when you could only take boards twice a year and it was a 5 part, 2 day test. Throughout the first few weeks all we heard about was how superior the BSN grads were (from the BSN grads), they were the "real nurses" and we were just cheap imitations. Well we all took the test together and you should know where this is going. All 10 of us inferior nurses passed our boards. Only 1 of the BSN grads passed. I wonder, after > 20 years of critical care and emergency nursing do you really think a BSN nurse should make more the me just because she has a couple extra letters after her name?

To Oramar: I wouldn't worry too much about a BSN requirement being phased in. They've been saying the same thing for the last 20 years. We can't get enough people interested in our profession as it is, I don't think anyone wants to make it harder that it already is.

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Oh yeah, I remember thinking that Dr. Deluca was really fishtailing away from some very pointed questions posed by the representative. There was another person from Pitt there(and I am positive that Lynette Jack said she was from Pitt)her name was Lynda Davidson. Personally I am going to aim my comments at Mary Ann Daily who is chairperson of this committee. Thanks to Karen I have a link that makes contacting these state reps very easy.

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:rolleyes: :cool: I don't think they plan on stopping with the BSN....we'll all have to be NP's!!!!!!!!! After all a masters is next on the agenda and NP is where it would follow. How about Grandfather Clauses? Do we get credit for years of experience? What about the nurses who can't attend school? Do they simply negate their education? For that matter, forget NP's lets all just be doctors and hand over patient care to .......???well gee whiz? Is there anyone left to do patient care?
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What a goofball Ms Jack is. Doesn't she even know that half of nurses aren't working as nurses? What would happen if we all had to get BSNs or get phased out?... talk about compounding the shortage problem.

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