Airforce1

Hello everyone, First of all I would like to say that if I offended anyone with my greenness, that was not my intent. I appreciate most of your thoughtful and patient comments and I hope to glean as much wisdom from the community here that I can. I am a brand new student and I have wanted to be a nurse for years. Perhaps my overzealousness to get to where I want to be in nursing resulted in my voicing of more than a share of passive aggressiveness. I am beginning to see that in nursing, the general consensus is that experience is the best education. Someone made a great point that nurses are expected to hit the ground running, and that nurses with advanced degrees are expected to be experts already at what they do, with little or no time to develop nursing skills that will be required of them. I guess all I can say is that I look forward to developing that experience. “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards" Vernon Sanders Law

You see, this is why I wanted to post this thread. Because there are probably so many qualified competent students out there, who upon graduating can begin to gain the experience they need to become excellent practitioners, especially if the framework is there for them to get the experience. Because over time, education first and then experience = the same Outcome as experience first then education. The problem seems to be that many have the attitude of YOU HAVE TO PAY YOUR DUES. This is not the teamsters, this is nursing.

Hello Everyone, I am a BSN student who is interested in pursuing a graduate degree in the future, probably a year after I graduate. I have read some posts and found that many here believe that an RN with that little experience has no place in Advanced Practice programs. This is where I disagree. I believe that Nursing culture is shooting itself in the foot here, and here's my cents why. A prospective doctor does not have to leave college after a bachelors degree to gain experience in the field of biology or chemistry before going on to Med school. A prospective college professor does not have to leave college after his bachelor's degree to get experience teaching at the grade school level. So WHY do so many believe that an RN has to leave school after their bachelor's degree to gain whatever many years of experience at the clinical level before going on to grad school? :nono:I believe that it is counterproductive for the nursing profession as a whole to discourage students who wish to complete their education (MSN or beyond) before beginning clinical or other types of practice. You would think that the sensible thing to do is get your education, and THEN get your experience. Am I the only one who feels like this?

On the topic of experience before schooling for NPs, I understand that experience is something for which there is no substitute. Nurses with prior experience are a valuable asset to any program they choose to partake in because of their clinical and other intangible experiences. However, I believe that it is counterproductive for the nursing profession as a whole to discourage students who wish to complete their education before beginning clinical or other types of practice. It is how doctors, lawyers, engineers, college professors, and you name it, achieve their professional level. Why some nurses feel that their profession should be different is beyond me. I think that it is nonsense to state that you must have experience before you even think of continuing your education. The fact that nursing education has made it as far as it has is a result of the nursing pioneers that fought for occupational equality and higher educational standards in the face of resentment from the paternalistic medical establishment that demanded a docility from their female workforce that they did not demand of themselves. A Nurse has not always been able to be an NP, don't forget that, and for that matter a nurse has not always had the privilege of a college education either. There was always resistance to new ways of doing things. Both from within and without. Just ask yourself, if your viewpoint is helping the advancement of the nursing profession and it's mission to provide care to the masses or if it's satisfying some deep rooted psychological need to serve the status quo.