8.13.2004 2:10AM 
I've been wanting to write something for awhile now on nursing and my general attitude of nursing education, but felt that as someone who hasn't even started her pre-requisites, my opinion didn't hold much weight. The more I thought about it, however, the more I think my opinion and views of nursing as an outsider, who isn't biased by my educational background, is relevant.

Nursing, like any other career, wants to be respected as a profession. Nurses want to be judged by society as skilled professionals and they also wish to be rewarded in their income as professionals usually are. Some nurses complain that they are twice as smart as the doctors they work beside, and end up doing more work, but are paid only a fraction of what a doctor makes. But where does the problem lie? Is it with the doctors? With the hospitals? With society? With nurses themselves.

There are many factors to why nurses aren't paid well and aren't given the respect that they deserve. Society is confused by what nurses actually do, sometimes viewing them as doctor's helpers, people who were too stupid to go to medical school, which just isn't true. In my opinion, though, one of the biggest problems with nursing is the nurses themselves.

Nurses want respect and want to be held in the highest regard as a professional. What nurses do is important and they should be respected. They work alongside of doctors, caring for patients in a unique way that only they can. Nurses are vital to the well being of a person who is ill. They work in high stress, critical environments where they can mean the difference between life and death.

Yet, in my opinion, they are lacking in the most important area that determines a professional: education. Nurses as a whole are unwilling to hold themselves to high standards when it comes to their education. There is a complete lack of standardization in nursing education.

When I go see a doctor, I know that he or she has spent at least six years of their life in college. They've studied their behinds off in grueling science classes, had to maintain a near perfect GPA when getting their bachelor's degree, and basically given up any bit of life for their college years.

But when I see a nurse, I can't even begin to guess what type of education he/she has, how long they went to school, or sometimes even if they are Registered Nurses! They could be anything from Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA's, which takes about six weeks to get certified), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN or LVN, usually takes a year), Associate Degree Nurses (ADN, two years, sometimes three if you didn't take the proper sciences in high school), or Bachelor of Science Nurses (BSN's, four years of college).

If I, someone who has a great amount of interest in nursing and plans on becoming a nurse, can't tell these people apart when I'm in a hospital or doctor's office, how is the general public supposed to? This is made worse by the fact that everyone gets to call themselves a nurse. I've even heard of cases where a CNA refers to themselves as a nurse. This type of thing only confuses the public as to what nurses actually do and their importance to the community. Are nurses emptying bedpans and stocking the shelves, like CNA's do? Or are they providing a fundamental skill that no one else can?

Why is this so important? Why does it matter? Because nursing will never and can never be a true "profession", nor will it ever garnish the type of respect it should, with all these inconsistencies in education. Nurses need to be held to as high of a standard as doctors and other professionals when it comes to their education. A Bachelor of Science should be the minimum requirement for nursing. Can a person go to a Voc-Tech college for a year and come out a lawyer? Would you respect a teacher who's only higher education was two years at a community college?

The title nurse should be a sacred title, one that is achieved only through hard work and a well rounded, balanced education (such as a Bachelor of Science). A Bachelor's Degree is what is expected of EVERY OTHER PROFESSIONAL. CNA's, LPN's, etc. should take their place as assistants to nurses, not on the same level, and not with the same title. They are not nurses. The public should not view them as nurses.

This problem is perpetuated by the nursing shortage. Hospitals need nurses and they need them now. So they'll accept the ADN's and LPN's, which hurts BSN's and their potential for professional wages. Why would a hospital pay BSN's a professional's salary when they can get the ADN to do the same job for a fraction of the money? Hospitals need to make educated nurses a priority. The conditions for nurses need to improve so more professionally driven people will get into the field. But that change needs to start in the nursing community itself.

The bottom line is that a hospital and our society are not going to treat nurses like professionals as long as the nurses don't hold themselves up to the standards of a professional. Until that time, nursing as a career will continue to be fractured, divided, and unable to move forward.

In summary, nurses need to:

- Standardized nursing education and entry level into nursing.
- Secure the title of nurse. The public will know exactly what a nurse and their duties are, which in turn will raise the public's respect of a nurse.
- I also think uniting nurses together to work toward the public good, for change in patient care, and to progress the field is vital. Unfortunately, as it stands now, there's too much division among nurses, and one of the reasons is education (BSN versus ADN debates are very common in the nursing community.)

This is just all my opinion, though. I know I've probably angered a few nurses out there. I'm not writing this to say a BSN is better than an ADN or an ADN isn't qualified to perform their duties. The purpose of this article is to address the issue of nursing as a profession. I'm sure there are many great, hardworking, skilled nurses out there that are ADN's. But as for being a "professional", it's hard to consider someone who did two years at a community college on the same level as doctors and lawyers who spend so much of their life working their behind's off in tough schools to get where they're at.

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