cedric2000

I can relate to your sentiments Salvie. I have the same experience way back when I graduated from nursing school and passed the local board. That was the time when the deployment of Filipino nurses abroad was almost to a standstill. And with that, there was a backlog of RNs looking for jobs in our country. Before I got lucky enough to get absorbed as a full time RN in one of the tertiary hospitals in Manila, I've already been to three post-grad nursing training/volunteer jobs. I can say that I must have been so lucky or it was just finally "my day" when I was included in the top 50 of the 500 or so applicants in that hospital. To cut the story short, that hospital experience in the ICU was my stepping stone to gain better opportunities in the middle east and later here in the US. Being in the US and coming from the Philippines, I can compare the contrasting situations between the two countries. It is the low supply of nurses in the US and the opposite of it in the Philippines. However, if you compare how the nursing leaders in each country respond to the situation, one can see the inappropriateness on the Philippine side. While nursing leaders both in government and private institutions in the US are promoting the profession for would be future nurses among its young citizenry, the Philippine side did nothing for the overcrowding population of RNs. This could be secondary to an overreaction or lack of foresight to the labile global demands of nurses abroad. They've allowed the mushrooming of nursing graduate factories here and there without looking at its impact on the nursing labor force. As I've learned recently, the Middle East which more often our customer for RNs, have started to offer lower salary rates owing to our oversupply of nurses. The Arabs must have learned about the Philippine saying, "Pag-nagigipit, kahit sa patalim kakapit". This is something that nursing advocates in the Philippines should have looked into rather than having "exchanges of matronic pleasantries" and "chit-chat" during nursing conventions, etc. The government regulating arm, CHED, lent blind eyes and deaf ears into the poor performance of some nursing schools in the local board. Well, what can I say, that is the Philippines.

Thank you for the input llg, actually when I thought of going to graduate school, I only knew of two advanced tracks, either nursing administration e.g. manager, director, etc, and that of the CNS which for me, focuses more on the "clinical or bedside" part of nursing. I really thought that CNS' role are primarily or just focused on educating staff nurses at the bedside (with some hands-on demo) or in the classroom, not until I knew of other tracks e.g. NP and nurse educator and nurse anesthetist. The CNS that I met in our institution works more of that an educator/evaluator e.g. hospital clinical orientation, ACLS/BLS, nursing documentation, etc. I'm not particular if they've ever done any research here. The teaching side of it got my interest, and so I wanted to be a CNS initially. The question is, if I do CNS, will it be a guarantee that I can practice both worlds, as an educator and as an advanced clinical practitioner like the NPs? I have browsed a lot of CNS curricula, and when I compared it w/ that of the NPs, the latter have more of the sciences: anatomy, physio, patho, pharma, assessments, etc, that makes them look more competent as an advanced clinical practitioners. The nursing admin and NP curriculum for me are both on extremely opposite poles, while that of the CNS is a hybrid and can be found in the middle, same for the nurse educator at some degree, only that the educator is leaning more towards the admin side.

I've been a critical care nurse for >12 years with more focus on cardiovascular nursing, more recently, I'm working in a cardiac surgical ICU. I've been planning to pursue a degree in advance nursing practice. There are only two roles I'm looking into which I like to do: teach future nurses and/or novice nurses in the hospital. I like doing lectures and presentations, evaluating and designing orientation programs for new nurses. But at the same time, I admire and like the NPs (and their roles) that I worked with in the CSICU, as they assess patients, prescribe meds, order diagnostics, insert central lines and present "their patients" during multidisciplinary rounds much like the PAs and residents do. I haven't seen a CNS doing such a role in our unit. Most if not all CNS that I've met are engaged in teaching and staff development, a role more specific to MSN- education major. With that in mind, I have narrowed my choices either to practice "advanced bedside nursing" as what NPs do or "teach" as what nurse educators do (education major) but not as a CNS. The CNS role is just too vague for me to comprehend, is it a case manager, NP, educator, manager, reseacher? To me, these roles can be performed by almost any nurse who is certified or qualified in that particular field e.g. certified case manager, ACNP or CRNP and so on.