DRYnurse

Depends primarily on what you are going to DO career-wise once you obtain your degree. I'll use myself as an example. I resisted going back to school for years until I was approached by a previous colleague who wanted me to teach classes in his Master of Health Informatics (MHI) program—but I needed a master's myself before I could. Did lots of research and quizzed leaders in my organization. One in particular made abundant sense: the MHA credential is more versatile and allows you to do different things in healthcare, which require exposure to leadership and management skills. Think of, say, an opportunity to start and run a cath lab program at a small hospital. Meanwhile, if you think there's a chance you would next seek a DNP, or you wish to stay nearer the bedside, MSN makes sense. Being in analytics, and motivated to teach in that realm, the MHA was an easy choice for me. Indeed, after a year I moved on from the MHI adjunct job to teaching at the same school where I got my MHA. I got to teach courses in IT, quality, finance, and health policy. I probably could not have done that with an MSN. Good luck in your journey!

Many years ago, we had a sweet little 90+ year old lady who was unfortunately badly constipated. Her doc made rounds and wrote the following order: 1. One quart cooking oil retention enema - get from dietary 2. If that doesn't work, try dynamite We soon got a call from the pharmacy asking if we could get the order changed. Reason: dynamite was not on the formulary.

Med-surg unit, poor little old lady is terribly constipated. Dr. writes: 1. Give 1 quart cooking oil as a retention enema. 2. If that doesn't work, try dynamite! First order was really not that out of bounds back in the day when this happened (mid 1980's). Really funny part was that pharmacy called the unit and said they were sorry but could we please call Dr. back and get a clarification -- because dynamite was not on the formulary!!! True story! This is a great thread -- keep 'em coming.... DRY