let's pretend that we agree to disagree on the adn vs bsn debate and start all over again with nursing education. let's call it a "professional registered nursing degree program."
first, answer the poll question: do you believe that the rn's educational needs--both clinical and theoretical--are fully served by today's adn or bsn education programs?
then, tell us what types of courses today's nurse needs in order to be best prepared to enter the workplace.
I think that possibly there needs to be more clinical time in hospitals but I still think there needs to be a didactic part of nursing education.
Nurses are required to know indepth pathosphysiology, pharmacology, and they need to know how to interpret laboratory data. While one could pick some of this up in the hospital "on the job", I think it is best done in the classroom setting by serious students who want to learn.
Of course you have to do your classroom portion and learn about acid base balance etc. But you can also look at the lab result shheet and tell if a value is abnormal. Within your specialty (and through actual clinical experience), you will learn what these abnormal values eman and what the ramifications are.
Think of how much we all "put together" in our heads when we are actually working. All of a sudden that stuff you learned in a book makes sense. Now you put it all together and you learn far more than you did from the book.
Personally, I would like to see all RN arograms require their students to do an additional year at the bedside (or at least a full semester) doing ONLY patient care and working along side a licensed nurse. I would like to see them take a full patient load (ease into it of course) and really learn what it means to be a nurse.
I still maintain that we burn out our new grads because they are ill prepared for the "real world."
This is so true. One of the few truly useful things my school has done is the extern program, where I do work side by side with an RN and have been easing into a full patient load (up to four now.) Unfortunately, it's an optional program and not all students take advantage of it. I have done so much more as an extern than I ever did in clinical. If I hadn't taken advantage of the extern program, I'm sure I would have been totally unprepared when I graduate.
Wow! What a can of worms we have opened! I love the discourse. Having time is a luxury, though. I really didn't have the time, I just had to find a way to stretch a lot more. My partner used to remind me to "be a willow, you can bend."
So, since we all have expressed great ideas, what can we do to implement them where we are? I just came from a meeting where the "skill of the nurse" from patient satisfaction surveys was discussed. Sometimes the personality of the nurse outshines her shortage of psychomotor skills and the patient perceives they are better than the next nurse with a less outgoing personality, but the ability to make that stick the first time,every time. The idea that came out of the meeting was to help each staff member shine and have baseball type cards made up so when Nancy goes into take care of Mr. Jones, she can give him her card. The nurse's stats would be on the card. Like nurse x ... years, grad from XYZ school of nursing, attends 20 training seminars each year, precepted x new nurses, achieved 2000 IV sticks, 5000 phlebotomy sticks. Does anyone know what Babe Ruth did the most of besides home runs? He was the top strike out player at the same time. What does that mean? He kept trying and that is what we do.
The art of nursing is really at the bedside and those who serve there should be rewarded, applauded and highlighted.
BETSRN
1,378 Posts
Of course you have to do your classroom portion and learn about acid base balance etc. But you can also look at the lab result shheet and tell if a value is abnormal. Within your specialty (and through actual clinical experience), you will learn what these abnormal values eman and what the ramifications are.
Think of how much we all "put together" in our heads when we are actually working. All of a sudden that stuff you learned in a book makes sense. Now you put it all together and you learn far more than you did from the book.