Whatever happened to going to school to be a nurse?

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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.

Spending my life caring for people sounds awful. I hope to do something useful with my career, like maybe design a mandatory geriatric euthanasia machine.

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Yes it may be sad but so are circumstances nurses work under now. It is so different than it was 30 years ago. The work was hard, maybe harder than now especially physically. The difference is what you did was appreciate by the patients and nursing administration. Now it's all about making money and scores like HCAAPS or HIPPA, or whatever the initials are. Nurses are asked to be extremely wise to use all the machines and keep up with changes.at the same time, they are to be waitresses to families and visitors. Don't ignore your patients as you chart on your 50 pound computer you are lugging around but make sure you answer the phone you carry so clerks and patients can ring you. Whew, I better quit writing before I blow this iPad up.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
Spending my life caring for people sounds awful. I hope to do something useful with my career, like maybe design a mandatory geriatric euthanasia machine.

That's what you're probably already doing when you obligingly run for the next "sumethin' fo' pain shot for ma' mom" to be delivered in less than 10 min from the moment that caring daughter hit the call button. Only it is named "core customer satisfaction measure", and it will suffer if you do instead what you were told to do while in school - to sit with the mom, hold her hand, pat her back, unglue her out of that TV screen and make her ambulate at least every couple of hours.

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Amen. I worked with some who "hung out" while I worked and intervened with their patients because there was a need. I will not let a patient be neglected, ever. I was considered hard nosed because I said anything to the new RNs. They could have come to me asked me for help and not dumped on me and the patients. What really scares me is that they might be taking care of me sometime and then we might go head to head. How do you go to an MD's office or NP school when you have never worked a med-surf floor? How do you prioritize, how do you know the chain of command, what do you do in an emergency(throw up your hands and call a code.?). All RNs are not equal. I like the ones who stick their noses in and put the proverbial foot down, but you got to learn that.

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I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting more out of your career. We are, after all, humans with everyday wants and needs. Bedside nursing is fine, but why would you exhaust yourself taking care of other people for the entirety of your life with such meager pay when you can advance your education and career and live a comfortable life without being peed and pooped on? There's nothing wrong with wanting advancement. Everything around us is advancing and you'll get stuck if you don't advance with it. There'a nothing wrong with wanting to be a bedside nurse because that's what we all entered the nursing career force for anyway, but at the end of the day, you have the choice to either take care of other people and earn lesser money or take care of yourself, your own family and have more time for them and earn more money and live more comfortably. It just depends on ones choices.

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I love bedside nursing and hands on care. But I've been a RN for 9 years and a lot has changed. It's all about the numbers, patient satisfaction and I cater more to the family members which takes time from my patient care. That's one reason I'd decided to get my fnp as well as more time with my family etc.

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Specializes in Surgery.

One thing I have not seen anyone mention is if the four year BSN and EVERYTHING else it encompasses is so absolutely essential to becoming a desirable, hireable, useful, essential "walk in the door" entry level model nurse, then where do all the RNs with BSNs in their portfolio fit in, when they can walk in to almost any university nursing program with a Bachelor's Degree in ANY other discipline, from Engineering to Zoology to Education, and in 12-16 months, walk in to the Pinning Ceremony and walk away with said BSN? How much of that 48 months of time spent in Pre-Nursing and actual Nursing education is essential to becoming a good, basic bedside care nurse?

Agreed, many of the basic education courses - English Comp 101, the college maths, Physical Education electives, Psych and Soc electives, make a good, well rounded, educated holder of the Bachelor's Degree, but it seems it really only takes 12-16 months to make a nurse out of them? Because that is what is happening all over the country. My daughter just did it a couple of years ago. She got her BSN in 16 months in a local, highly respected University program, associated with an equally highly respected hospital clinical program (the only facility with which they associate, although her clinical experiences were divided up amongst several different hospital-owned and run programs, including a Free Clinic run for the benefit of the chronically homeless, etc.) So, how about it? Just how much of that University level, four year focused BSN program is really focused on turning out good nurses? Apparently if you walk in with the right prerequisites already covered from anywhere else, as long as some are not more than 10 years old, and a few others no more than five, you can take one more year, or maybe 16 months more, and turn it into a BSN. YES, I already have done the math, and yes, I see that when you add up all the numbers - 4 years for the first degree plus the additional time to make a BSN out of it equals at least five years, or five years and four months. My question isn't about the total time involved, but the actual time it takes to create an actual functioning bedside care RN.

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Yes, I got my associate degree RN before bridging over to BSN to get My MSN. My BSN did nothing for me...we spent a lot of time in my associates program in actual nursing care! In. BSN program it was all about leadership and research ..

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.

When I started 35 years ago, all I ever wanted was to be a "nurse". As I became more and more experienced, I then wanted to simply learn as much about my specialty as possible and so began obtaining certifications in areas related to the specialty. That is all I ever wanted. Never wanted to be in management etc...

I will say, as times progressed, I began to feel "less than" in comparison to those who obtained higher degrees, and felt like I was being lazy in not wanting to peruse higher education. Mostly. I felt this way when working in academic institutions where every other nurse had at least a Masters degree or CNS, etc...

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
One thing I have not seen anyone mention is if the four year BSN and EVERYTHING else it encompasses is so absolutely essential to becoming a desirable, hireable, useful, essential "walk in the door" entry level model nurse, then where do all the RNs with BSNs in their portfolio fit in, when they can walk in to almost any university nursing program with a Bachelor's Degree in ANY other discipline, from Engineering to Zoology to Education, and in 12-16 months, walk in to the Pinning Ceremony and walk away with said BSN? How much of that 48 months of time spent in Pre-Nursing and actual Nursing education is essential to becoming a good, basic bedside care nurse?

Agreed, many of the basic education courses - English Comp 101, the college maths, Physical Education electives, Psych and Soc electives, make a good, well rounded, educated holder of the Bachelor's Degree, but it seems it really only takes 12-16 months to make a nurse out of them? Because that is what is happening all over the country. My daughter just did it a couple of years ago. She got her BSN in 16 months in a local, highly respected University program, associated with an equally highly respected hospital clinical program (the only facility with which they associate, although her clinical experiences were divided up amongst several different hospital-owned and run programs, including a Free Clinic run for the benefit of the chronically homeless, etc.) So, how about it? Just how much of that University level, four year focused BSN program is really focused on turning out good nurses? Apparently if you walk in with the right prerequisites already covered from anywhere else, as long as some are not more than 10 years old, and a few others no more than five, you can take one more year, or maybe 16 months more, and turn it into a BSN. YES, I already have done the math, and yes, I see that when you add up all the numbers - 4 years for the first degree plus the additional time to make a BSN out of it equals at least five years, or five years and four months. My question isn't about the total time involved, but the actual time it takes to create an actual functioning bedside care RN.

And what about the programs that take a bachelors of anything, and give a masters in nursing after an intense year of training?

Those really got my goat!

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In reply to the original question: The economy. I don't see much benefit in working hard for a "normal" position, due to the poor working conditions I've read about on this site. I'll put in my ICU time, but forget stopping with my BSN. It's hard for me to come to any other practical conclusion.

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Maybe I'm just one of those spoiled rotten new grads, but I can easily see the other side of this. I refuse to be a floor nurse. Not because there is anything wrong with the profession, but because I've been working for my RNFA since high school, and working in regular med surg with my fifteenth unfixable COPD/DMII/CHF patient instead of fixing fractures in the OR would quickly start to suck at my soul. I'm about to leave a psych position to pursue a surgical career, and plan on securing my CNOR ASAP. There's nothing lesser about floor nursing, but personally, I don't want to work med surg and so I'm not going to; it's just not for me. I feel that this should be our right as nurses--we do a very demanding job and choosing where we work should be a decision that's protected from judgment.

On the contrary to some previous posters, our instructors prioritized total patient care; we did the hygiene, education, ambulated patients and more... and it only made me more conscious of the fact that I don't like that kind of patient care. I got some flak for this, and wanting to be an OR nurse was almost seen as trying to 'get out of' the bedside (and bedpan-side) role. But not only is that not my reason, I feel that as nurses--any nurse with any degree--we poured our collective heart and soul into graduating, and worked so hard for this degree. Whatever we want to do with it should be fine. It's your hard work, tears, and sleepless nights... if you want to take it somewhere that I'd rather not work, more power to you! It makes it less likely that I will ever have to float there!

Throughout nursing school I also saw a lot of students who wanted to work as "regular nurses" but wanted to specialize, in OB, LTC, etc. I was always grateful for these folks because a unit should be filled with people who want to work there, and they had a real passion for these fields. But med surg didn't seem to be a popular 'passion'; instead, people often said that they were going for a year or two to get experience, and then leaving for their chosen specialty. Med surg is changing, even in its role to nursing students.

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