Question to y'all about degrees...
Ok so this comment came up in one of the nursing communities I'm in, and it kind of irked me. Actually it more than 'kind of' irked me, it bothered me. A LOT.
I graduated from my hometown college back in 1997 with a Diploma in Nursing. I've been working almost constantly since a year after I graduated, mostly all hospital nursing with a year or two of long term care thrown in there, but in almost every situation I was a charge nurse with more responsibilities than your average bear.
What is the difference in perception between a nurse that has a Diploma or ADN, or a nurse that has her BSN to an 'outside the field' person? Do I, as a Diploma trained nurse, seem or appear less trained to you just because I don't have BSN behind my RN?
When I was going to school, it was well known on the floors when we were going to clinical that the nursing students from my school were better trained, more ready to work, and able to do more than the BScN students that were at our level or even a semester or two above. When it came to hiring, we were hired more often because of our last set of clinicals compared to the university - we had more experience on the floor.
I have heard many times since coming across the border to work that Canadian nurses seem to be better trained than those schooled in the US - and quite frankly, from being witness to several clinical sessions while I was working at the hospital in Great Bend, if my clinicals were as easy as those were when people were 2 weeks from graduating, my graduating class would have been a whole lot bigger!
So - I'm throwing it out to the general public, meaning YOU. What is your opinion of degree nurses versus diploma nurses?
I graduated from my hometown college back in 1997 with a Diploma in Nursing. I've been working almost constantly since a year after I graduated, mostly all hospital nursing with a year or two of long term care thrown in there, but in almost every situation I was a charge nurse with more responsibilities than your average bear.
What is the difference in perception between a nurse that has a Diploma or ADN, or a nurse that has her BSN to an 'outside the field' person? Do I, as a Diploma trained nurse, seem or appear less trained to you just because I don't have BSN behind my RN?
When I was going to school, it was well known on the floors when we were going to clinical that the nursing students from my school were better trained, more ready to work, and able to do more than the BScN students that were at our level or even a semester or two above. When it came to hiring, we were hired more often because of our last set of clinicals compared to the university - we had more experience on the floor.
I have heard many times since coming across the border to work that Canadian nurses seem to be better trained than those schooled in the US - and quite frankly, from being witness to several clinical sessions while I was working at the hospital in Great Bend, if my clinicals were as easy as those were when people were 2 weeks from graduating, my graduating class would have been a whole lot bigger!
So - I'm throwing it out to the general public, meaning YOU. What is your opinion of degree nurses versus diploma nurses?