BSN is a joke

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I am a nurse at a major hospital where I have worked over a year after gaining my ASN. I have returned to get my BSN. What I'm not understanding is why there is such an ENORMOUS disconnect between what I do at work and the class work I need to do. It doesn'y apply at all. I have to take family care classes and informatics with very little practical application. I have to memorize all the rules of APA. My patients don't care if I can wrote a wonderful APA formatted paper. They just don't. It's like there is no appreciation in BSN education for what nursing is really about. At no time will I EVER do a CFIM on my patient or a PEEK readiness assessment. Get real. Where is the disconnect? Everyone I talk to say's the same thing about their BSN program, that it is completely useless. Who decided that nurses needed extensive training in social work and paper formatting?!?! I don't deal with social work. I have a team of social workers for that. At no time will I ever be in a patients home trying to improve the communication between family members ect. There are family counselors ect for that. It isn't my job! Yet here I am getting trained in areas I have no interest in, and will never ever use in my career. And for what? So I can say I have 3 letters behind my name and the school and hospital can make more money? Its a joke. I'm learning nothing of value. I would drop out and find a new school, but everyone I talk to has the same opinion about where ever they went. Basically healthcare has become obsessed with accolades, but forgot that those accolades were supposed to represent a level of expertise.

Why is there such an enormous disconnect between real life nursing and nursing education??!?!?

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
Do you realize how patronizing your post is? Just because you and others found the BSN valuable (for you), it doesn't mean that it is inherently valuable for everyone. .

So you're saying that you do not think you would benefit in any way from more education?

If so, I find that incredibly sad. And you can call me patronizing all you want, but it's the truth.

Nobody is forcing you to participate or post data. You're free to leave this thread if you're done discussing it. But it's hard to have a conversation when you're not actually...participating. You're just complaining about how mean and patronizing we are. But again, you are free to quit participating in this thread whenever you want.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
I find this comment extraordinary. You are a guide on this site. You are defending the studies, not me. I am not required to post any study or sources. Who are you?

Apparently I am extraordinary and a guide on this site (at least according to what you just wrote) :) Thanks! I also like long walks on the beach, spending time with family, science, and data. Who are you?

I am not really defending the studies per se, just pointing out the fact in response to blind dismissal. They exist, they are peer-reviewed, they are consistent over both time and location, and they are the breadth of the extant data on this topic.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.
Actually the majority of the pressure is coming from employers not academia.

The response above was related to employers pushing forward for BSN only hiring...

Not to be rude, but as intelligent as you are with all of the resources and knowledge on this subject that you seem to have...you're not aware of the Aiken (aka academia) = Magnet/ANCC = employer wanting BSN only push "correlation"??? (Who's to say the IOM isn't on the bandwagon too - not necessarily a bad thing but to not recognize how each influences the other..?)

Linda H. Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN | Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania

Linda Aiken's Research is Changing the Nursing Profession - Articles Archive - Nursing Jobs, RN Jobs, Career Advice at Working Nurse

HL2

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Just throwing it out there as well, I think Susie was just looking for how any of Aiken's studies proved that the BSN had better patient outcomes, not what the outcomes were persay.

I always personally felt that the Aiken's studies (or any study I've read on this particular subject) didn't control enough variables such as the qualities of each of the hospital's, the staffing ratios at each, whether any or what percentage of BSN's were previously ADN or diploma prior to the study start and for how long, etc.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

Not to be rude, but as intelligent as you are with all of the resources and knowledge on this subject that you seem to have...you're not aware of the Aiken (aka academia) = Magnet/ANCC = employer wanting BSN only push "correlation"??? (Who's to say the IOM isn't on the bandwagon too - not necessarily a bad thing but to not recognize how each influences the other..?)

Aiken is a researcher; like most non-profit researchers she holds an academic appointment. She is not the business side of "nursing academia" (which is a term I don't quite get, seems to be similar to antivaxxer's "bigpharma").

FWIW, Aiken is also responsible for the data the prevents hospitals from having one nurse to 20 patients. Her research on staffing levels has been vital in maintaining reasonable staffing ratios against economic pressure.

It is my contention that employers (large hospital systems which employ the majority of bedside nurses) are motivated by one thing: the bottom line. The care about patient outcomes as far as those outcomes translate into financial gain. Nurses are a hospitals biggest expense. Magnet status is about revenue. Getting rid of more experienced nurses is about revenue; and they now have a nice shield to hide behind to do that.

I'm also not entirely sure we will ever truly be respected as a profession until nursing care is either billed separately or itemized, instead of being included in the room charge like a piece of furniture, regardless of what degree the nurses on staff had at the time of service.

We agree on this, absolutely. I have posted about it many times. While nurses remain a non-billable expense they will be subject being treated like just that: an expense to be trimmed wherever possible.

she could have included better environmental controls in those studies along with some of the other studies she has been involved in.

What environmental factors do you think weren't controlled correctl?

Again I have some (what I feel are) legitimate concerns about the study design and the conclusions drawn, but I don't see any glaring issues with the data.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Closed for review.

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