Question about overlap between BSN & MSN subjects

[Gentleman_nurse, MSN]

I notice some subjects in a BSN curriculum such as nursing research, pharmacology, assessment, and nursing theory are also covered in most MSN programs. How is the content taught in your school? Do they simply repeat it assuming you forgot it? Do they assume you have a background and continue from that point?

I ask because I have a ADN but a BA in another field. I found a couple of RN to MSN programs which require few if any related BSN bridge courses. I'm considering applying but concerned about my ability to succeed in such a program.

What do you folks think?

[Corey Narry, MSN, RN, NP]

The graduate courses build on the undergraduate versions.

For instance, Advanced Pharmacology focused more on prescribing which covered patient selection in choosing an agent, dosing guidelines, monitoring parameters, and current research on the drug's effectiveness. This is taught with the understanding that the students knows drug indications, actions, and side effects learned in undergrad. Pathophysiology delved deeper into disease processes starting at the cellular level with emphasis on diagnostics and how to differentiate between similar presentations of pathological processes.

Advanced health assessment is more hands on. You not only listen to heart tones, adventitious sounds, check cranial nerves and such but you are forced to synthesize the data you gathered in the exam in forming a differential diagnosis of what you think is wrong with the patient in order to come up with a plan for diagnostics and tests you will want to order for a particular cluster of assessment finding.

Nursing research, statistical methods, and nursing theory in my case, were courses full of writing papers about synthesizing nursing concepts into practice, choosing statistical methods to suit a research design, judging research findings based on its strengths and weaknesses, using nursing theory as a framework for research questions, and things of that sort. It was not like undergrad where concepts were spouted out and memorized - it went deeper into actual application of the knowledge and in a manner that promotes the student's independent thinking.