Whatever happened to going to school to be a nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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The other day as I sat at work listening to coworkers talking about career paths and what degrees they should pursue I couldn't help but think back to when I was a new nurse 32 years ago. I went to school to be a nurse, as everyone in my class did. The discussions were where do you want to work, not what is your career goal. It seems no one wants to just be a nurse anymore. This is all pushed with the magnet statuses, national push for more and more education and I wonder what is so bad about being a nurse caring for patients year after year. Most young nurses I hear talking are appalled at the thought of your entire nursing career caring for people. I am sure there are some new nurses who just want to take care of patients, but I haven't talked to many. I find this sad.

I think the demographics of the folks entering nursing have changed dramatically, not in small part to the state of nursing education at all levels nowadays. With the dawn of the day of "midlevel provider", everyone with an eye toward everything from anesthesia to internal medicine have seen the BSN as the portal to a "rewarding" life long career that has little if anything to do with "nursing".

Universities have become aware of this and capitalize on it for maximal return. Moreover, because of the increased demand for BSN's, academic requirements for admissions have become ridiculous, some well known schools not considering less than 4.0 GPA's for admission to a bachelor's degree program.

This means that folks with enough academic horsepower to go into engineering, law or even medicine do the math and discover that advanced practice nursing is a very favorable path to take.

So, as the OP implies, the type of folk that went into nursing even 25 years ago are not the types that enter today by a long shot.

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If everybody wants an advanced practice role at least salaries for bedside RNs will probably go up. I didnt particularly enjoy being a nurse but it wasnt bad. Enjoyed the patient interaction but couldnt stand the handing out medicine part. My fat fingers cant pop those pill things worth a darn.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I once talked to a younger coworker, and she told me that a lot of this attitude starts in nursing school clinicals. Many of her nursing professors looked down on bedside nursing. Students were taught that they should be going on to get higher and higher degrees with the implication that nurses who worked bedside their whole careers were "lesser".

There is also a social class issue mixed in.

In my experience it is the greedy schools convincing everyone they need to stay and contribute another $50k+ to the university's pocketbook because advanced degrees are the latest and greatest.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
They sold me on the idea of being an APRN, not a bedside nurse. .

It is unfortunate and I'm sure your experience is rather common. Perhaps the schools have some altruistic motive that doesn't involve separating you from your hard earned dollars as they regal you with tales of bigger and better things if only you keep the tuition checks flowing? After all this you too can be called "doctor" but not in most hospitals where Dr. means MD.

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Specializes in NICU.

For me, the reason I don't want to do bedside forever, is I feel it really is too hard on my body. Don't get me wrong, I am doing nothing compared to those working on adult units with 300-400lb patients. I work in a NICU and I absolutely love what I do most days. And I probably would do bedside forever if I felt like it wouldn't decrease my life expectancy or quality of life.

Twelve hour days are hard for me. I'm young and healthy and I still feel the effects of long and stressful shifts. Yea, I could switch to a clinic with five 8-hour days, but it wouldn't be NICU and that's where lies my heart in nursing. I could change my employment status to part-time so I only have to work two 12-hour days but then I wouldn't qualify for benefits, and I need them.

So my options are work my legs, back, and brain until something breaks or move up the career ladder. At least if I move up the career ladder at some point, I can have the choice to stay in the NICU but still protect my own health.

So it's not always that people are dissatisfied with the bedside, it's what the bedside and what comes with it, could do to some people, like me. Moving up in the career is probably the best option in this situation. Obviously I'm not only in bedside to move up, but sometime in the near future, I will make the move and abandon bedside.

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I had plans on working in the hospital as a bedside nurse and staying there, because I really enjoyed it throughout nursing school, and thought I found my niche. I got my RN license this past April. Almost everyone in my clinical the last semester had plans to earn an advanced degree and move out of bedside asap. The professors and instructors really drive it home that nurses need to continue their education. I only have my ASN, therefore I barely have employment opportunities. I live in a metro area and NO hospitals are hiring nurses without BSNs. They are all aiming for magnet status. I work pediatric private duty, and it's ok, but I wanted a bedside job in the hospital. My job doesn't offer tuition reimbursement, so I'm forced to take out a loan to pay for my BSN, just to get a steady job (private duty/home care can be unreliable and unpredictable). It's a little depressing. My job now and the hospital pay the same rate, but I pick up lots of OT, so it's not the money that I'm after. This whole field is a mess. There are still nurses out there who actually enjoy bedside nursing, but nursing has become extremely competitive, and greedy. I've seen quite a few older bedside nurses flat out retire early because they were being forced to go back to school or be fired. These nurses haven't been in school in about 30 years! It's such a shame!

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^ it's true, I got hired with just an ADN but I had to sign a contract to get my BSN within the next few years, or else it's adios, amigo. And tbh the BSN courses I'm taking aren't making me a better nurse. At least in terms of bedside skills. Maybe the educators know something I don't, maybe all these essays I write on ethics and evidence-based practices are supposed to make me an even better critical thinker than I thought I already was. But considering how I'm acing those courses without barely trying (which is completely different than my ADN experience...) I'm not sure the BSN class is making my noggin do any more mental exercises than it already does.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
^ it's true, I got hired with just an ADN but I had to sign a contract to get my BSN within the next few years, or else it's adios, amigo. And tbh the BSN courses I'm taking aren't making me a better nurse. At least in terms of bedside skills. Maybe the educators know something I don't, maybe all these essays I write on ethics and evidence-based practices are supposed to make me an even better critical thinker than I thought I already was. But considering how I'm acing those courses without barely trying (which is completely different than my ADN experience...) I'm not sure the BSN class is making my noggin do any more mental exercises than it already does.

I also went from my ADN to BSN ect. and found my entire BSN and most of my MSN was relatively useless nursing fluff. Not to totally discount all the "Now That You Have An Advanced Degree You Are Uber Important Perspectives in Advanced Practice Nursing 401" type courses but if they had all been condensed into 1 class for BSN and 1 class for MSN think of all the actual hard sciences or clinical hours we could have been exposed to which would actually improve patient care as opposed to those obnoxious poster presentations.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
For me, the reason I don't want to do bedside forever, is I feel it really is too hard on my body. Don't get me wrong, I am doing nothing compared to those working on adult units with 300-400lb patients. I work in a NICU and I absolutely love what I do most days. And I probably would do bedside forever if I felt like it wouldn't decrease my life expectancy or quality of life.

Twelve hour days are hard for me. I'm young and healthy and I still feel the effects of long and stressful shifts. Yea, I could switch to a clinic with five 8-hour days, but it wouldn't be NICU and that's where lies my heart in nursing. I could change my employment status to part-time so I only have to work two 12-hour days but then I wouldn't qualify for benefits, and I need them.

So my options are work my legs, back, and brain until something breaks or move up the career ladder. At least if I move up the career ladder at some point, I can have the choice to stay in the NICU but still protect my own health.

So it's not always that people are dissatisfied with the bedside, it's what the bedside and what comes with it, could do to some people, like me. Moving up in the career is probably the best option in this situation. Obviously I'm not only in bedside to move up, but sometime in the near future, I will make the move and abandon bedside.

This was a similar realization for me also as well as when I saw the difference a skilled prescriber could make in a patient's illness as opposed to a poor prescriber it seemed like a natural progression for me to continue with my education and become a NP. That said however the first hand observations and knowledge I gained during my years of RN floor nursing were invaluable and what I consider part of the natural progression and original intent when our brief, rather superficial NP curriculum was initially approved. That component is largely missing today and there is no way in less than 1,000 clinical hours a person who hasn't ever cared for patients will be ready to prescribe, imo.

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Specializes in Urgent Care, Oncology.
I also went from my ADN to BSN ect. and found my entire BSN and most of my MSN was relatively useless nursing fluff. Not to totally discount all the "Now That You Have An Advanced Degree You Are Uber Important Perspectives in Advanced Practice Nursing 401" type courses but if they had all been condensed into 1 class for BSN and 1 class for MSN think of all the actual hard sciences or clinical hours we could have been exposed to which would actually improve patient care as opposed to those obnoxious poster presentations.

While I agree that many of the classes are fluff, the two classes I learned a lot in while getting my BSN were Population Health (Public Health) and Advanced Assessment. Advanced Assessment has helped me step my assessment game up and Population Health lead me to my calling - Public Health. Literally I took that class, loved it, and got a job at the Health Department!

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I had plans on working in the hospital as a bedside nurse and staying there, because I really enjoyed it throughout nursing school, and thought I found my niche. I got my RN license this past April. Almost everyone in my clinical the last semester had plans to earn an advanced degree and move out of bedside asap. The professors and instructors really drive it home that nurses need to continue their education. I only have my ASN, therefore I barely have employment opportunities. I live in a metro area and NO hospitals are hiring nurses without BSNs. They are all aiming for magnet status. I work pediatric private duty, and it's ok, but I wanted a bedside job in the hospital. My job doesn't offer tuition reimbursement, so I'm forced to take out a loan to pay for my BSN, just to get a steady job (private duty/home care can be unreliable and unpredictable). It's a little depressing. My job now and the hospital pay the same rate, but I pick up lots of OT, so it's not the money that I'm after. This whole field is a mess. There are still nurses out there who actually enjoy bedside nursing, but nursing has become extremely competitive, and greedy. I've seen quite a few older bedside nurses flat out retire early because they were being forced to go back to school or be fired. These nurses haven't been in school in about 30 years! It's such a shame!

I believe that is in the job market in general.

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While I agree that many of the classes are fluff, the two classes I learned a lot in while getting my BSN were Population Health (Public Health) and Advanced Assessment. Advanced Assessment has helped me step my assessment game up and Population Health lead me to my calling - Public Health. Literally I took that class, loved it, and got a job at the Health Department!
Hii, VaccineQueen Great post. A helpful quote "Learning is a gift even when pain is your teacher" :) I wanted to know what book did you read for this class?
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