It used to be that nurses did not have to go to college; we were instead trained by hospitals. Then the education requirement changed and community college replaced hospitals. And now, it is changing to that some hospitals will only hire nurses with college degrees. Undoubtedly, the education requirement will continue to increase in the future.
The downside to this is that it will make this profession harder to get into. And those who are in the profession will constantly need to adapt by going back to school. The upside to this is that it will provide us with more skills to do a better job.
You just graduated so I guess you just wouldn't know if you are gonna be better equipped than somebody else yet. I think that you got some debt, am I right?? (see the comparing a nurses' salary thread) This is really what I think fuels the "I'm betta" or "I deserve" arguments.
You lost some money, college means losing money. How much you lost was in your control.
Specializes in Emergency, Med-Surg, Progressive Care.
Half-baked at best? Please. Some of the "seasoned" nurses I worked with when I was brand new didn't understand why they gave K+ with lasix. Speak for yourself, maybe.
New graduate nurses are not even close to being prepared to work without supervision for at least several months. The foundation is certainly laid, but I think a more clinical-based BSN would more adequately prepare nurses for the 'real world'. If I could change any one part of my nursing school experience, I would have liked more clinical hours with less hand-holding. Most students should have enough sense to know when to stop and ask questions, and have enough confidence to do what they know without an instructor breathing down their neck. I would have loved to had another year of advanced pharmacology and pathophysiology and less restrictive clinicals. I think that would be a better use of the BSN than the current offerings.
The K+ with Lasix is a pretty silly thing to not know, I'll grant you that.
I was half-baked...that's why I had a preceptor for two months. I am young, but I am fairly accomplished; being a new nurse has been the most humbling time of my life. Hubris has no place in nursing. In school, you learn how to be a nursing student. Once you start working, you learn how to be a nurse.
I really do not see a need to change a thing....the various stages of education and levels of nursing seem to fit the individual and his/her needs just fine....as an LPN, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be a nurse, and the time frame I was able to attain those initials was a real bonus....I am now continuing on in the LPN to BSN program and am only doing so because of my own personal career goal of becoming a NP in Psychiatry...that is my choice, and others should have choices too....by stating that all nurses need to have the BSN following there name is counter productive in my opinion....by doing so you will eliminate a great deal of fantastic nurses, nurses that have LPN and RN attached to them....In my own little Utopia, I would love to see the heirarchy and competition over "who's the better nurse", simply because of the stupid initials that follow the name be eliminated....we are all simply nurses, isn't that good enough?....
I know it sounds silly & maybe even a little crazy but education can always be a good thing for both the young and old, or in this case an experienced nurse. I am on my way to becoming a nurse & for that I am most grateful. I am also grateful that I will have my masters (specialty is yet to be decided because I am *still* debating between two). It kind of saddens me when people are not really wanting to continue their education (and believe me I have heard my fair share of excuses or life altering burdens). However, I have been interning/volunteering (unpaid) for almost a year now and every morning at 7 am I get to see what my days will be like when I work alongside CNAs, RNs, LVNs, physicians, social workers, etc..and it excites me! I learn something new from all of them, but I rarely see them learning from each other. I have a huge amount of respect for each individual that works on the orthopedic surgical floor (where I am currently helping out), for different reasons. Even if you have been working for 2 years 10, 15, 30+ years, the technology and procedures will continue to change. A little education never hurt anyone, and we all should be excited to learn about new methods, new ways to use machines, new ways to improve our communications skills between patents, their families, and other staff members, and new ways to make sure patients are recovering in a clean and fast pace environment that gets them back to living as a healthier human being. Hopefully people could be more positive about it, instead of dreading it. Maybe the current nurses and future soon to be nurses could think of it as a good thing because as human beings and changing generations we are constantly striving to make sure that the *patient* is getting the most up-to-date and correct type of healthcare that is available.
Specializes in ER - trauma/cardiac/burns. IV start spec.
I have a ASN and I graduated from a program run by a fairly large university. This program has had a 100% passing rate for the NCLEX for years. The day I graduated I met a physician visiting from Seattle and when introduced he asked where I had gone to school, I told him and was offered a job on the spot. He knew of the school I had just finished and told me it had a reputation for turning out excellent nurses. I went straight to the ER, had 3 weeks of orientation and then went to nights. After 3 shifts my preceptor cut me "loose". I spent the next 9 years 3 mos and 17 days on nights as a staff nurse, a charge nurse, a fill-in night supervisor and the all-round night shift "IV starter" for any floor/unit that had a "hard stick" and I did all this with a lowly ASN. If I had to have a BSN then I would have never become a nurse. For the life of me I cannot understand how more history or more English comp classes would have helped and I was certainly not going to take 2 physical education classes at 38 years old.
I did have occasion to work with new grads from the local 4 year program and not one of them spent less than 12 weeks on orientation. As a matter of fact not one of them stayed in the ER. One nurse did not feel comfortable being in a code after 7 weeks of working in the ER. My first over-dose was pyridium and no one knew what to do. I had a crash course in using methylene blue as an antidote. Notice I said crash course - I had to get out the med books and look it up. That is what we do - ASN's do not stop learning, we learn on a daily basis plus we have required CE hours for maintaining our license.
ASN or BSN we take the same NCLEX, we take CEN, TNCC, PALS, ACLS etc and the tests are the same. I have known BSN's that failed CEN when the ASN passed. Require all nurses to be BSN and hospitals will find a way to use less nurses and more "skilled technicians" (that work for lower pay) in more patient care. If you personally want to be taken "more seriously" then get your NP or your MSN but there are a lot of nurses out there that just want to do patient care not management. There is room for both degrees IF we stop fighting each other and work together to advance Nursing as a complex profession.
I don't think it will happen, they threaten this every decade or so. Although I have an ADN, I think it would gain respect for our profession. There *are* some really, really bad "pop-up nursing schools" out there. At the same time, we all know that it really is experience that makes a good nurse. NOW, if we could only make nursing school more productively difficult instead of women just being nasty to each other, *THERE* would be a true improvement. Along these lines, nursing school should be *much less* subjective.
I am an older bedside nurse (> 50 years old) who is going to go back to college. I could go to the community college, where my bill would be paid for because it is by far the cheapest route but my past education does not fulfill their requirements. So it will take me 2 1/2 years to complete that schooling. I will be the ancient of days by then. Or, I can go to one of the very expensive online schools where I will accrue a great deal of debt. However, I should finish in 14 months. So whatever raise I get for this education, it will go to paying it off if I stay that long working as a nurse or I lose that amount of money waiting a year to get the BSN. Either way, I lose. I will probably keep my job though. Many of the younger BSN nurses that I work with are working toward a masters. There are simply not enough master's degree positions available at my particular hospital, which means that most of them will be doing bedside nursing with a master's degree or they will be overqualified for that position and the hospital will not be able to pay for their services. My hospital does offset some of the cost but not enough to cover it all. It's sad. Will it change my quality of care for my patients? When I compare myself to the BSN nurses around me, I have to say no.
Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.
Since I am staring 50 in the face in 2 months it does not make sense for me to acquire debt to get a BSN which would not raise my pay at all. If they want everyone to have a BSN then it shouldn't require older nurses to add debt at a time when they can never make up that debt through increased income.
Those of you saying that leadership and management classes do not make you a better nurse...do you not all supervise CNAs, PCTs, etc? Learning to supervise staff makes you a more efficient nurse and allows you more time to do "real nursing". When you are first starting out, you may not be ready to take this on. As you gain experience, you realize how important this information from what some call non nursing fluff courses, really is.
I know here in CA, they are already starting with the BSN/MSN preferred. It is hard to get into a hospital with just an ADN and little experience. I personally think that the "old" way of training in a hospital, then add the book stuff, would be a lot better. Most of the new grads I know and have trained with are completely unprepared and I think a lot of that has to do with so much time studying and preparing for the Boards and not enough focus on being comfortable at the bedside setting, practicing, practicing, practicing. That's just my two cents.
What I see, here in the US, is an aging population and the affordable care act adding thousands of patients into an overworked and understaffed healthcare system on one side. On the other side are people with the desire to enter nursing. In the middle is the bottleneck that is nursing school. Increasing the education requirement is only going to tighten that bottleneck as nursing programs have to deal with current nurses who are returning to school. I don't even want to bring up the financial cost of continuing your education as well as the time it takes out of our already busy lives.
I am a BSN grad working on orientation at a hospital. I sense a lot of hostility towards BSN grads in this thread, for whatever reason. As for me, I don't really even know who has a BSN or who has an ASN on my unit. We all work together. As any new grad, I have a lot to learn and experience a lot of stress on the job, and my fellow nurses (many with decades of experience) are a great resource and support.
Personally, I found my BSN education to be personally valuable. I did not take "fluff" classes for my general education classes. I took very hard sciences, particularly in the chemistry and biology field -- biochemistry, analytical chemistry, cell biology, and other advanced science classes. I understand the way the body works in ways that other nurses do not. For example, one of my patients was on the drug "cyanocobalamin." Neither of the nurses I worked with could even pronounce this word. However, I had studied the molecule in depth and could inform the patient about it. I also studied many other molecules, and did independent research/projects on medications and therapies that are new. My research experience, experience writing professional papers, and my knowledge of such topics (my capstone project in science was on vascular endothelial growth factor) gives me a much different perspective on my practice as a nurse and my understanding of medicine.
I just wanted to edit to add that another BSN classmate of mine studied psychology extensively at our school as well. She is now a psych nurse at one of the top facilities in our area and even in the nation. Her knowledge she gained from her education is going to make an enormous difference in her patient's lives.
Nursing is not just about who can pass medications the fastest or perform skills the best, and who can manage an 18 patient load on a fast-paced telemetry unit (exaggeration). It is about be a respected professional, and what we can each individually bring to the table to make our patient's care unique. I take pride in being a professional and using my knowledge in my practice. Right not I feel like a bumbling idiot on my unit, but I know that with time and practice, I will be able to bring my own unique qualities, knowledge, and education to the bedside. And I do not want to do management.
netglow, ASN, RN
4,412 Posts
But RCBR your argument supports mine.
You just graduated so I guess you just wouldn't know if you are gonna be better equipped than somebody else yet. I think that you got some debt, am I right?? (see the comparing a nurses' salary thread) This is really what I think fuels the "I'm betta" or "I deserve" arguments.
You lost some money, college means losing money. How much you lost was in your control.