BA2BSN

I am earning a BSN because I value a bachelor's degree, not because I think other people will any more than an ADN. I have heard it will not get me any more money, more prestige, more opportunity, blah, blah, blah. It will get me the opportunity to persue future possibilities and will give me personal pride. It's a personal choice and as long as the ANA and others push for it, I think it is only wise to consider. What anyone else does is up to them, but I feel better getting it and like I will be better prepared for the future of nursing, not just the present. Maybe you can use this in your debate - it's not a reflection on anyone, just why I chose what I did. I already have one bachelor's so I got into a program where I will be done - prerecs and all - in 2 1/2 year's time. I am 20 months in (yes, I am counting!) right now. If I were in teh local community college, I woudl still not be doen with their prerecs to take prerecs and would then sit on a 3 year waiting list to do a 2 1/2 year program. Total time: 7-8 YEARS. No thanks. I think I will more than make up my tuition in the extra 5 years I will be working and gaining experience.

No. If I wanted to be a doctor I would have been one.

Can you say zero interest credit card? Yup. We got a line of credit for me to use, but I hate the thought of doing it and getting whacked with interest charges, so I am using a zero interest card for purchases which INCLUDES school that expires next October (I will have been out of school for a couple months). I only use it for tuition and an occasional book if I have an unusually high bill. I paid two semesters by writing a check, but that stresses me out too much since I am not working and am a stay at home mom by day and feel way too bad about draining our savings like that, so I put one on the card and think I will do that from here on out. I figure why pay up front when I can deffer it and pay what I want as I go? I just hate the debt idea. I will transfer the amount to another zero interest when that one expires, cancell the one I have and hopefully be able to pay it off by the end of that one. I have the line of credit to fall back on, but I don't think I will use it. Call me crazy, but I think it's a plan that just might work :chuckle I hate interest charges! As for free money that you don't have to pay back, please tell me if you find it! I looked all over the web and wasted a whole day looking at these sites that turned out to be junk! Sad fact is once you have a bachelor's, forget it! GGGRRR!!!!! The only saving grace is when I signed up for this program, we got a discounted rate that is locked in for the length of the program. The day students pay $550/hour (just went up again) and we pay $400/hr. locked. Still a lot, but it's like a little built in scholarship/grant. You might want to ask to see if they have something like that. I didn't even know it wasn't that much for everyone until a couple months ago because who would think to ask?

I graduated with high honors from a university already and will say NURSING SCHOOL IS DIFFERENT! I have kept A's with only 2 B's and I am halfway through my first semester as a junior (split semesters - it's this super accellerated 18 month thing of all 8 week classes). If not for the grading curve going up to a 93% being the cut off for an A, I would have had straight A's becuase both of those B's were 91/92%s. I was upset the first time it happened, but what can you do? I am at the top of my class and there is no shame in a B in Med-Surge, especially doing it all in only 8 weeks, which nearly killed me, BTW :chuckle Edited to say: there are people in my class who are doing pretty bad (kinda just hanging on) and the do not work, live at home with parents and have no kids. That, I cannot figure out. I am a stay at home mom all day to a 1 and 2 year old with a pretty tight schedule anyway and I go to school at night and on the weekends for clinicals. If I had their lives, I would have had those two A's, but you have to take your other commitments into account as well. If you did your best and got a B...life goes on. If you feel like you could have done more and get a C...you will surely do better next class and then you life goes on, too! As long as C's are not your goal in life, you are motivated and I bet will do just fine!

I will tell you what I told someone this weekend with they said why don't you just become a doctor: Because I don't want to be any damn doctor! A nurse is not a half-way doctor, a nurse is a nurse. *Maybe* I would get a master's later on, and not necessarily to be an NP, but that's about it!

I am becoming a nurse because of my experiences in having children. My first was an emergency c at 35 weeks. Both of us were at the end due to my moron doctor who "didn't know" I had toxemia. Knowing what I do now after all my studies and talking to nurses since, we were too close to even talk about, especially him. He had NO fluid, heart decelerations, blood shunting to the head, intermittent blood flow kept going only by his heart and the hugest surprise of it all - down syndrome. WELCOME TO MOTHERHOOD!!! I did not like my nurses (on the day of my discharge I was asked aren't I forgetting the baby was by my nurse I'd had for three days ) did NOT like the doctors in the NICU AT ALL, did NOT like some of the nures there (the ones who would tube all his feeds because he "couldn't do it" Really? No, they were just lazy. Three days out of the hospital the tube was out, thank you VERY much!) but LOVED three of them. I will never, ever forget them as long as I live. One outwardly cried when I held him for the first time and told him how much I loved him and I would fix this for him, just give me time to figure it out. One basically told the doctor to go blow in a pc way during one of his attacks (He was the jerk who told me my son might not live, had TOF, imperforate orifice, insufficient intestines meaning colostomy or possibly incompatible with life and oh by the way, downs, too, like it was a death sentance. Yes, he has DS, but the rest was all innacurate - he's never had so much as an ear infection 3 years later!) One would sit and talk with us about a lot of nothing that meant everything. Every minute didn't need to be a huge drama. My son was stable, healthy as a horse and on only a nutrient drip and a room air cannula - not bad for a preemie born on the verge of death. She always put him to bed and made sure he had his stuffed puppy draped over him so he wasn't alone. NONE of the nurses I adore had a child in a NICU. One never even had kids. I think it's in you or it's not, but some of us have to get the big flashing sign put in front of us to relize we whould have done this in the first place!

This is my first new thread at all nurses - just found you guys! Hope you don't mind me lurking around here - I have one year left in my ba -> bsn program and I'm verymuch wanting NICU when I graduate. My son is a NICU grad and a few of the nurses are the only people who got me through an excruciating time of life. My boy and those nurses literally changed my life - hence the giving up my of old career to be a nurse! I look forward to chatting with you all. So many times when I say I want to be in NICU I get "oh it's so hard, how will you deal with it..." I just tell them, been there, seen that and I want to help! Not only the babies, but I think I can be of help to the families and parents as well. Good to be here!

I apologize for that - I glanced over it and was grossed out and that was it! I don't know what any of those sites are and have never accessed them. This was legitimately emailed to me by a friend of mine who is a nurse who was horrified. It looked like a news column to me (and I am sure him, too!). I do apologize for any upset it may have caused.

Here ya go. I am warning you it is extremely graphic and I heard there are pictures involved, though I could not bring myself to look. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44777

Sorry to butt in...I know we don't know each other, but boy, do I feel for her! I had my son three years ago in an emergency C due to SEVERE Oligo (level II u/s only found about a tsp in his bladder) and of course, failing heartrate, shunting blood to his head, intermittent bloodflow in between his heartbeats in he and the placenta (but the placenta test came back "normal" - oh, okay), IUGR...all of this was discovered at 35 weeks and despite weekly visits and my constant complaints of what I now know were symptoms of preeclampsia and toxemia if not HELLP syndrome, no one knew anything No rupture of the placenta on tests and I know for a fact I never leaked. I didn't have raging BP so I was blown off despite having almost every end stage sign besides that (I have very low BP 80/60ish and they didn't bother thinking hmmm...110/90 is pretty high for her). The landslide started at 2 - at 9:18 my joy came screaming into the world at a slight 4lbs, 7oz. but healthy as a horse with triple 9's on his apgars. Interestingly enough, he has Down syndrome - something else they missed...Yes, I ditched that doctor! I have never, ever been able to find out what happened to the fluid and for a while, I have to say, he is doing so well a lot of people including his ped wondered if there was some mistake and the oligo cause the features rather than the DS. From about 30 weeks on I kept complaining of feeling like I was sitting on his head - turns out I probably was and I will bet that is when enough fluid was used up that he stopped being bouyant. That was a while ago and we know he has it, but in the absence of all else, as crazy as it sounds, maybe there was a congential anomily even if it didn't look like it. I will never know what happened there withthe flid - with the placenta fine and his heart and urinary tract fine, there had to be something else going on. Probably the toxemia? Sometimes no one knows why these things happen, they just do. It's a poor explaination, but when all else fails, I a decent I don't know from a doctor would have made me happy. Perfect souls rerely come in perfect bodies and some are too pure for this earth. I wish your sister and all of you peace in this troubled time.

For the record, I COMPLETELY believe the story about the baby in the freezer. I just read a new article about an abortionist eating the remains (I will gladly post the link if anyone is in doubt), so I would not put what that story states past the population as a whole, especially the population that thinks it's "not a baby". As horrific as it is to the rest of us, those people ARE out there - probably a lot more than we think.

I think it't frivilous - what if he passed out during the birth and the same happened? I do NOT think a family member should be asked to participate in medical care like that, though. As many said - what if he would have slipped/she became paralyzed, etc? That would be my bigger question about all of this.

I am sorry that whole thing happened. I can't help but think about when I heard in class that a heart beats at three weeks and pain is felt at 20. That fact haunts me when I think of what goes on. Can't help but think you don't see that on the front page of the pamphlet at the planned parenthood/clinic/etc. While yes, people need to educate themsleves, they turn to medical professionals to help and I think it is up to all of us to tell the whole truth - not just what fits our beliefs/what we think will hurt them the least/etc. Let's be truthful - there are a lot of people who just cannot comprehend/know where to look for a lot of in-depth information on many situations (not just abortion) and re relying on either the helathcare system or a pamphlet written at what is it now, a 5th greade level, to make life changing decisions. BA to BSN in 2006!