Would your institution hire an MSN w/o BSN?

[chuckster]

Not sure which is the most appropriate forum for this, but here goes.

My ultimate goal is to become a Family Nurse Practioner. The advice of nursing faculty at a well-respected university was that as the holder of both bachelor's and master's degrees, the fastest route to NP was to get my ADN, become and RN and then enter the MSN program via the Bridge program for non-BSNs.

After getting my RN however, I now find that some - and possibly many - of the hospitals and other healthcare instutions - have hard requirements that all nursing employees must hold BSNs and that essentially, they do not recognize non-BSN MSNs as having anything other than an ADN. Even ANCC or AANP credentials apparently do not change this - the BSN is an absolute requirement for employment.

Is this peculiar to my area (greater Phila) which has lots of colleges and universities churning out BSNs (and a glut of nurses competing for relatively few jobs) or is this something I'd face in most parts of the country or even internationally?

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i would question their "rule" as not being current with contemporary teaching methods. there was a time when you had to get bsn in order to get msn. but if the state will give you an advanced practice licensed then that ought to be good enough.

you may be right about contemporary teaching methods, but there are so many advance practice nurses with no nursing experience on the market right now, and many of them are dangerous as prescribers. they just don't know enough to know what they don't know. contemporary hiring practices seem to favor the advance practice nurse with some actual nursing experience.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i think i did not communicate my question clearly.

the question is not: can an adn-rn get a nursing job without any experience but having an msn? after all, it's only natural - and appropriate - that institutions require some level of experience from their msn's and np's as a pre-employment condition.

what i'm trying to find out is: after getting both experience and an msn, would someone still be frozen out of the job market with potential employers not recognizing the msn as at least the equivalent of the bsn?

at least one large employer does this - the military. all military nurses (with the possible exception of army nurses) are required to have a bsn to join. the military will not consider second degree rn's with msns for commissioning. in this case, nursing experience is moot. the military will accept newly graduated bsn-rns but not experienced msn-rn's or even msn/np-rn's lacking the bsn.

what i've heard, admitedly anecdotally, is that at least 2 of the national health care organizations have also adopted this policy and will not consider your application if you are a 2nd degree msn-rn. they absolutely require the bsn, irrespective of experience or advance practice credentials.

if this is indeed a trend, all 2nd degree msn programs essentially become expensive wastes of time and money. what i'm trying to find out is if this is the truly the case.

evidently i'm one of the folks who misunderstood your question. my institution has hired several direct entry msns -- as bedside nurses. that's been the case in other hospitals where i've worked as well. we did have an or tech, though, who got her bsn then went directly for an msn and wanted her first nursing job to be as an advance practice nurse. she actually did get hired as an advance practice nurse -- in africa.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

They tell us we are supposed to be hiring RNs with "a minimum of a BSN." I think experience being adequate (which for us is minimum 5 years), we'd hire you.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

i think the odd requirements by employers (excluding the military) who require a bsn to go with the msn is because of the over abundance in supply of nurses who have both. also, job descriptions i read that wish to hire msns for management also require 3-5 years of experience, where 1-2 was as a manger and 3 was at the bedside. i think once the supply of nurses drops and employers choose to hire more nurses again (the economy is already improving so the economy is not the problem), then we will read job descriptions that are more favorable to all educational backgrounds. for example, i recall three years ago reading job descriptions for managers like "bsn preferred, but not required... must have x number of years experience" or "bsn or other health related bachelors degree required, msn preferred... must have x number of years experience..."or "rn license with x number of years experience preferred…" or "rn license required, where having a pulse is optional... be teachable/flexible until we fire you and hire someone else.”

[PMFB-RN, RN]

The medical center where I work hires advanced practice nurses without BSNs all the time. Quite a few of the CRNAs do not have BSNs, including newly hired new grads. Several of our newer CRNAs have _NO_ nursing degree (obviously they have other degrees) beyond ADN. Also the acute care NP who works day shift in our ICU does not have a BSN, or any other bachelors degree. She did ADN to MSN, though she was already a kick-butt ICU nurse in our unit before she went back to school.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Did I miss that this was for a APN position? Sorry, I thought the OP was asking about staff nursing. We have an odd dichotomy I guess. Several MSN prepared staff nurses, and many NPs without a BSN. My own PCP is a NP who has only an AS from a now defunct community college. She teases (good naturedly) me about someday "outranking" her (her words, not mine) all the time b/c I am going for the DNP. She's been a NP for over 30 years and has forgotten more than I know even with my fancy Ivy League degree, lol.

Anyway, it is quite common here for the NPs to have an AS or ADN as they have all been NPs for a very long time. We only have a handful of NPs anyway, but only 2 with MSN that I know of. WE have 2 CRNAs, both have been CRNAs for well over 20 years, so they may or may not have had to get the MSN. Both of the FNPs w/ MSNs are relatively new (less than 10 years), and if I stay in the area, I'll be the only one with a DNP. That still puts me firmly at the bottom of the pack experience wise! Would I get a job that they would not? Unless it is teaching in one of the Universities, I seriously doubt it. The hospital system that owns our local hospital will not credential any midlevel providers at all, in any capacity other than CRNA, period, so the hospital's take on educational preparedness of the ANP is moot.

[chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Thanks to all for the replies.

I've made some inquiries over the past couple of days and it seems to be true in the Philadelphia area that some hospital groups (Main Line Health and Tennant were mentioned) require all new nursing employees to have BSNs, regardless of holding any higher nursing degrees. Ironically, neither of the 2 larger nursing schools in the area (Drexel and Widener) who offer the MSN for 2nd degree RNs grant BSNs as part of their programs. So they are effectively graduating a significant number of nurses who may not be employable - at least in the Philly area. Both schools, along with most of the other nursing schools in the Phila area do offer accelerated BSNs for 2nd degree RN's and one (Jefferson) offers an accelerated RN-BSN to MSN where some of the BSN courses count toward the the MSN. This is of course a wonderful way for nursing schools to bolster their enrollment and make a little more money in the process.

From what I can see of the the responses here, it seems that the Phila area is different than most in this regard. As one poster suggested, this may be due to an overabundance of nursing personnel in this area with both degrees. While this is bad news for 2nd degree MSNs, it is also bad news for ADNs, since they also will not be considered. This goes a long way toward explaining why more than 50% of the ADN grads from 2009 from my local CC have not been able to find work. Another irony: Admission to the ADN program at my local community college (not Phila CC) is among the most competitive of any of the RN programs in the area.

It looks to me that the moral of the story here is that if you are going to be a nurse in Philly, you would be well advised to concentrate soley on getting a BSN. I wonder how long it will be for employers to insist that MBAs also have undergard business degrees as a condition of employment. That would be a boon for local B-schools and surely can't be far behind!