Professional Nurse: BSN VS ADN... need help...

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 26, 2006

"Professional Nurse" can be debatable. There's "professional" behavior on the one hand and then there's the university definition of a "profession" which includes an entry level at a baccalaureate level, among other parts of the definition, that state the "professional nurse" is BSN prepared.

The ADN's get very upset with this "how dare you not think I'm a professional" type of definition. I'm kind of with them on this. Why separate RNs who take the same NCLEX into professional and technical. Not a good idea, IMO.

I think that is what you're talking about, but most people when they think of professionalism they think of behavior. In that respect anyone can be professional, a CNA can exhibit unprofessional behavior as well as professional behavior.

Good luck with your paper, I would hate that kind of assignment. Yuk.

weirdRN, RN · Mar 26, 2006

Tweety, Thanks for the input.

I wasn't looking at the whole issue as "How dare they...!" but "Why do they?" I was looking at it from the stand point that no matter how you are prepared, we all take the same NCLEX and all have the RN behind our names. Professional is as professional does.

As for the whole profession definition. I think that nursing is a profession whether a Bachelor's Degree is required or not. I think that nursing is a profession even though we are no longer discernible from rn to cna to rad tech or respiratory thereapy or even housekeeping. (Everyone wears scrubs....except the doc's ... unless they are coming from the OR)

I am just kind of confused over the whole technically professional but not professional thing thingy.

Honestly, I know the BSN's work their collective butts off to get the BSN but I think that if you took two new grads, one BSN one ADN and put them on the floor together, they would do nearly identical work.

I'm still looking at other older posts, but I am not really getting anything except a whole lot of division and acrimony on the subject. It is really disheartning to know that this goes on in the work place all the time.

The whole ego... I've got the bigger education than you, I am a better nurse than you b/c you don't have an adequate education thing... it is just disgusting. And I really resent having to take a position on something I find so repulsive.

JessicaNP · Mar 26, 2006

Hi,
I am working on an assignment for school. I am in my last semester of an ADN program.
The assignment is to think about my definition of what a Professional Nurse is and how the current nursing image is impacting it.
I was wondering what everyone thought of BSN and ADN educations. The reason I ask is that I found an ancient article on professional nursing that stated that an ADN is a technical Nurse and the BSN is the professional Nurse. I thought, what does it matter? both are held to the same standards of practice, the same workload, responsibilities ect. How can one be professional and one just be technical?
I would appreciate any thoughts on this as it will enhance my response assignment.
Thanks
Kristie
I do not understand how the two are different, except that the BSN has more stuff for community based nursing in it and the ADN is focused mostly on Hospital based nursing.

In our society, there is a big difference between an associate degree and a bachelor of science degree. If a person is dead set on getting a college degree, they are going to go to a university and not a community college. As far as the BS degree being the minimum requirement for registered nursing...it SHOULD BE! How many teachers do you know who have an associates degree? How about engineers? Nursing is the ONLY profession that only requires an associate degree for entry into practice. This really hurts the image of nursing.

SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN · Mar 26, 2006

If a person is dead set on getting a college degree, they are going to go to a university and not a community college.

That's an unsupportable assertion. Just for starters, I don't have a four year institution within a reasonable distance to my home, and at 52 my husband would be quite perturbed if I told him I was off to live in the dorms. Not to mention the teeny boppers who would just die at having, you know, gramma living there.

As it stands now, an ADN and passing the NCLEX are what are required for entry into nursing. Statements about ADNs hurting the image of the profession are divisive and a slap in the face to your hard-working and well-educated brothers and sisters.

Change the law if you sincerely believe what you are saying - and I have no reason to doubt that you do - but please refrain from treating your peers so disrespectfully.

clee1 · Mar 27, 2006

In our society, there is a big difference between an associate degree and a bachelor of science degree. If a person is dead set on getting a college degree, they are going to go to a university and not a community college. As far as the BS degree being the minimum requirement for registered nursing...it SHOULD BE! How many teachers do you know who have an associates degree? How about engineers? Nursing is the ONLY profession that only requires an associate degree for entry into practice. This really hurts the image of nursing.

WTG, stepping right into the koolaid with your first post.

A batchelor's degree does NOT make a person a professional. Professionalism does. You would do well to keep that little fact in mind.

weirdRN, RN · Mar 27, 2006

Come on, Be serious and be nice, I won't get an A with out your help.

I understand that some obscure academic said that in order for a profession to be a profession that the education had to be at the Bachelor's level. (I think that guy was smoking crack and the theory needs to be re-visited especially in the light of newer emerging professions of this century. I mean hey, what kind of Degree did Bill Gates have when he founded Microsoft?)

So what? Does that mean if an academic said that you had to jump off a bridge to be a professional you would do it?

Seriously, entry level nursing is way way down the totem pole at the nursing assistant/housekeeping level. THERE is where nursing starts. Mopping the floor, wiping butts and emptying bedpans. I have heard Nurses, BSNs and ADNs alike, who never worked in patient care before they became a nurse say that that is not part of their jobs.

Seriously folks. Consider it. What were the duties of a nurse a century ago? Did nurses have formal education? Bachelor Degrees? For that matter did Doctors? Are we saying that those women who worked their butts off in the Crimean war were not professionals? What about the heroic nurses of WWI, II the Korean War and the Vietnam War? Are you telling me that by not having a Bachelor's Degree that made them less a professional than a BSN on the floor today?

And so what if one nurse has a bachelor's degree and I don't? How is that nurse better than me? I have known BSNs and ADN's alike who probably should have had to re-take nursing school to re-learn their basics of care. I have known BSNs and ADNs alike who were at the top of their game.

The whole devisive bickering over entry level is irrelevant. APRNs, BSNs, ADNs, LPNs, CNAs and housekeepers are here to stay. It isn't going to change. It may get worse but I doubt ever better.

Please help me understand the fundamental difference between BSNs and ADNs, other than telling me that one has a bachelors degree and the other does not. How are their practices different? How are their frameworks different? What makes either better or worse than the other?

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2006

Tweety, Thanks for the input.
II am just kind of confused over the whole technically professional but not professional thing thingy.

I am too. It's hard to swallow the university definition that after 15 years I'm not a "professional nurse".

weirdRN, RN · Mar 27, 2006

Okay, so when we are stating our opinions we will preface our comments that way, so that people know that we are just blandly, with out heat, stating our personal opinions.

gwenith, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2006

I Australia we did a total conversion to BSN for Registered Nurses. Hasn't helped our standing as "professionals" one single bit. We are still the least powerful of any of the health professions, least able to enter independant practice and way way way behind the rest of the world in developing NP roles.

So if you truly want to ace your test - look at a country where single entry has become standard.

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 27, 2006

It's generally considered that a person is a true professional who has a university degree or higher-----I don't support that notion myself, but this is widely held. And you will find your university professors telling you this---literally drilling it into your head. I think professionalism encompasses a lot more than what degree is held by an individual.

But this has all been done here before. If you really want serious discussion and help, do a search of the site under:

ADN versus BSN

or something on that order-----you will find plenty of things to read; likely you don't have to the time it will take to get through it all.

weirdRN, RN · Mar 27, 2006

Wow gwenith,

That is amazing. So you say that even though the profession has gone to a single entry point, At the Bachelor's Degree level, Nurse still are daily disrespected in general by the larger healthcare community?