Nursing School Vs Med School, no comparison.

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Haha. I'm totally not looking forward to the day when I tell all my nursing instructors that I'm planning to go to med school. Right now I need some financial stability and a great way to get exposure to healthcare is nursing. I wish I was comfortable enough to risk it all and take loans to do a post-bacc, but I'd rather get the RN and work while I do a post-bacc. Nursing school is a cakewalk and I am terrified of classmates that are scraping by with minimum passes. I'll never go the NP route because I want to practice medicine and not imitate those who actually do. Physicians are the alphas of healthcare and those who fail to recognize don't know their role in the system.
I'm taking my BScN in Canada and the classes bore me, most of what we are taught is irrelevant. The funny thing is, in my province the required average out of high school to enter a BScN is around 88%. I haven't had to study much at all and i'm almost done- the only thing I take seriously is clinical because that''s where I learn valuable stuff.

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You sound very ignorant and irrational. You're not special, we all work hard. So you had a bad experience, move on and don't judge the whole profession. Hospitals, even floors will range widely in the quality of staff. You had bad luck on yours and it's good that you left. You're going to work with ****ty nurses, social workers, and even doctors one day. Try to stay away from them and focus your care on your patients.

I wish we can just put all the doctors and nurses who bicker in the same hospital and leave them so the rest of us can get work done.
If you read my earlier posts you would see that my entire premise is that I'm not special just because I'm a nurse. I said that "WE" (which includes me) aren't God's gift to healthcare, but according to you my comments are "irrational and ignorant."
My problem is with nurses who think they are special and it's because of them bullying in the nursing profession is rampant. Moreover, my problem is with people like you. You might not be like them, but you're certainly colluding with their behavior through your apathetic comments like "move on."
 
If you read my earlier posts you would see that my entire premise is that I'm not special just because I'm a nurse. I said that "WE" (which includes me) aren't God's gift to healthcare, but according to you my comments are "irrational and ignorant."
My problem is with nurses who think they are special and it's because of them bullying in the nursing profession is rampant. Moreover, my problem is with people like you. You might not be like them, but you're certainly colluding with their behavior through your apathetic comments like "move on."

I'm sorry I didn't read the entirety of your posts, but from I gather, you hate being a nurse and will be happier as a doctor. You are irrational and ignorant because you are n=1. It's scary how your journey mirrors mine except I've had very positive work environments/colleagues, but chose to ignore all the negativity(including much on sdn). Don't think I don't have a problem with bad nurses, as I have a bad problem with ANY bad healthcare worker. Just please, be BETTER than them and don't stoop down the the condescending attitude. The post I quoted makes you sound so arrogant, I just had to comment. The majority of nurse vs doctor posts on here ends up being bad for the nurses, but I just had to comment on yours particularly. I'm going back to lurking elsewhere, pm me if you want to chat, but there's no changing your mind about the profession.
 
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I'm sorry I didn't read the entirety of your posts, but from I gather, you hate being a nurse and will be happier as a doctor. You are irrational and ignorant because you are n=1. It's scary how your journey mirrors mine except I've had very positive work environments/colleagues, but chose to ignore all the negativity(including much on sdn). Don't think I don't have a problem with bad nurses, as I have a bad problem with ANY bad healthcare worker. Just please, be BETTER than them and don't stoop down the the condescending attitude. The post I quoted makes you sound so arrogant, I just had to comment. The majority of nurse vs doctor posts on here ends up being bad for the nurses, but I just had to comment on yours particularly. I'm going back to lurking elsewhere, pm me if you want to chat, but there's no changing your mind about the profession.

How are comments on a thread bad for actual nurses?
 
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I tried to talk to them. I told them this was my first nursing job. I was open and honest with my preceptors when I said I was hesitant and a little afraid. That's why I was taking it slow. I wanted to make sure I read every word of every order. I asked them to remember what it was like when they started their nursing career and it fell on deaf ears. Naturally, I spent most of my free time with the interns and residents :)
Hemingway said, "There's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self."
I might feel differently after med school but I'm still holding a grudge.


Lol. No grudges here, just reluctant w/ some and disappointed w/ some others. In general, nursing doesn't know how to guide, mentor, and teach newer nurses or even experienced ones that are new to an organization. Even some of the clinical nurse educators are clueless...if not about knowledge and clinical pieces, than certainly about how to educate and mentor adults learners. If I see one more educator or preceptor talk down to another nurse like he or she is a child, I am gonna straight up vomit. If I see one more educator or preceptor set a nurse up for failure, I am gonna lose it. This is counterproductive and totally unnecessary.
 
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Kaustikos, I apologize for my rude behaviour. I have tremendous respect for you as a student. My point was that some nurses think that the drug is actually called that. Some doctors may use brand names excessively, but atleast they know that a generic name exists

Much of the brand name thing is from the past. Only in more recent times has use of generic names been emphasized. Plus people do find writing Keppra is much easier than levetiracetam.
 
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Doubtful. The expectations and requirements from nurses is actually increasing, despite what people think. They're working longer hours and some nurses have no jobs.
Though this is from where I am. Had a fairly recent lay off where 200+ nurses were let go and the remaining ones had double the workload. I felt bad for them. Especially the OR nurses. It was essentially deal with it or be replaced by someone else who'd be willing to suffer what they do. And it impacts physicians, too.

I see a mix of bright and caring to not-so-bright and don't care so much, except when it makes them look good. There are plenty of highly intelligent and experienced ADN RNs that blow some BSNs totally out of the water. Ultimately it comes down to the individual.
 
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I see a mix of bright and caring to not-so-bright and don't care so much, except when it makes them look good. There are plenty of highly intelligent and experienced ADN RNs that blow some BSNs totally out of the water. Ultimately it comes down to the individual.

What about the curriculum? Is that standardized across all programs that award the BSN or ADN?
 
What about the curriculum? Is that standardized across all programs that award the BSN or ADN?


Let me put it this way, for better or worse, the programs are such that the ADN and BSN take the exact same licensing exam. The major difference with BSN is that they include more community health, research based nursing, leadership nursing, and a lot more writing-intensive coursework. In terms of clinical practice, the same information for clinical practice is there. If they were dramatically different from a clinical perspective, they would not be sitting for the same NCLEX examination. I am not saying I agree with it, but it has been this way forever practically. It's just that the ADN programs give you all the nursing process and disease/treatment based courses early. They both include A&P I & II< Microbiology, bio, and some chemistry and social sciences.

The BSN programs add coursework to fit bachelor degree requirements--so again, leadership/mgt course/s, statistics, a limited pathophys--in most pathophys ADN programs, that part is incorporated with each area, such as Medical Surgical Nursing, Maternity, meds, psych. nursing, etc. These are included in both programs with the exception of, again, more community health nursing, leadership, research, a global health course--all of which the latter are in certain programs, more writing intensive, to include data-base research and APA formatting for the research, and there is a senior thesis project or something similar and more humanity electives in order to fill bachelor's degree requirements-->~ 120 credits. Personally, as much as I liked my BSN program, the pathophys could have been more substantial, but a person can fill more of that in on their own, if they are so inclined to learn it.

Everything you need to function effectively as a RN professional is given is a good ADN program from jump street, where as, in the generic BSN programs, you don't get to the meat and potatoes of diseases, treatment, and use of planning and nursing process until the latter half of the program--pretty much last two years. The ADNs get it fast and furiously from jump street. There can be a lot more weed out of students in ADN programs bc of this. They either jump into it, digest it, and move forward or they don't.

Ultimately it's the individual, and the clinical experience he or she get that makes the difference. Don't miss understand. I am not against BSN programs. I have a BSN; but everything I needed to know to sit for NCLEX and practice nursing as a novice nurse, I gained in my ADN program, which was very competitive and had a high attrition rate. The BSN was nice, with some interesting stuff, but more like icing on the cake, not so much core clinical/functional knowledge. The additional coursework in a good BSN Program today is in place to ready the BSN for Masters to doctoral work in nursing; hence the huge writing intensive focus. That stuff is not tested on the licensing exam. So, after that it depends up on the individual, where he or she chooses to work, learn on their own, study on their own, get experience in, any advanced work for certain certifications after the right amount of hours in practice--for example,e the CCRN, and critical care.

In short in a good ADN program, student and NCLEX licensing does NOT equal LPN. It equals RN, same as for a BSN. It's just that this longstanding argument about school programs has been going on so long, and Magnet and other higher entities have made a huge push for the BSN. Thus, it's harder nowadays to get a job in various areas without the BSN.

It's mostly political; but personally, I think they should just make it one system of education to BSN and be done with it. Just b/c of the politics, or if a person wants to go on in advanced practice, or just to unify the profession. Plus it might help reduce the number of people that score high enough to get into competitive ADN programs (cause there can be waiting lists for the good programs), and just want to get the degree and sit for NCLEX in about ~ 2 years b/c it pays better than the local food mart or department store. And it would also reduce those ADN programs that aren't top-not, consistently showing poor NCLEX (fail rates), and eliminate them altogether.
 
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I agree with everything ji lin said except the bit about we should go to one educational preparation for RNs.

If I were hiring a new grad nurse, I would take a diploma program nurse over an ADN over a BSN every single time, all else being equal.

They just come out of training much more prepared to actually work. BSNs are often know-it-alls who can't wait to put in their two years of ICU so they can get into a CRNA program, or else to rush through their MSN so that they get a job in administration. There are many that don't mind the dirty, hard work that is actual bedside nursing... but I'd say the majority come right out of school looking for the easiest ladder to climb.

Diploma nurses and ADNs are more likely to be either second career folks or people who have put in a few years in an even less glamorous role as nursing assistants, surgical technicians, etc. They have a solid work ethic to begin with, and then they are thrown into the fire within the first weeks to months of their programs. The attrition rates are savage, but the ones who survive it are made of sturdy stuff. They don't need their hands held. Many of these have families and come from low socioeconomic backgrounds, so that they could never have entered the profession if they had to go to school for 4 years.

Making that the requirement would lead to a real shortage of nurses, as opposed to the current shortage of facilities willing to hire enough nurses and compensate them adequately to keep them from leaving the profession for less stressful and dangerous opportunities. 2-3 years is plenty of time to learn enough theory and practical skills to be a safe, competent novice nurse. And nothing but on-the-job experience can make the novice into an expert.

Additional time in school is not wasted on every nurse... some will pursue careers in research, informatics, education, administration, etc. But for those expecting to care for patients, the current BSN structure is inefficient. A better system would be a 2-3 year basic diploma / ADN education, followed by a 1-2 nursing internship in one's specialty of choice. That would address many of the problems faced by new nurses as well as the profession as a whole, but I see it as unlikely. There are too many vested interests that want to keep things just as they are, or else to force everyone to adapt to a standard that looks great on paper, but falls short in practice.
 
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Nah, I was prepared quite well in my ADN program back in the day. But I will add that I had worked in heatlhcare prior to that, and I had the benefit of a mother that was highly experienced and knowledgeable and she and her ED buddies would let me be in the ED setting and learn things--again, back in the day. So, in many ways I had a leg up on some things compared to my ADN cohorts. I also knew I wanted to go into intensive care early on--and I compromised by working in a very busy step-down, which required an fairly involved critical care course as a GN. Back in those days too, they gave you a numerical score for NCLEX, and I was fortunate that I had an amazingly high score--whatever that means, it led to many job offers for me.

Also, in critical care, they didn't, back then call it an internship, but essentially, that is what is was. For every advanced area, it was usually ball-busting; but that can be the nature of these areas, b/c in general, a highly level of competence is required.

IDK about the shortage issue you suggest; b/c the demand for RNs is nothing like it was back when I first graduated from nursing school. They were just very picky about whom they allowed into critical care areas, so that's where things like board scores and such tended to matter.
Truth is, in many areas, ADNs, much less diploma RNs and even a number of BSNs are not finding jobs.

I say eliminate all the nonsense and just make the BSN programs tougher, incorporating more real clinical nursing aspects earlier on in the programs. You have a number of people that don't go the BSN route, and I feel, at least for some of them, it's about them getting to a better paying job in a shorter period of time. Let them make the longer term commitment. Also, just let the NCLEX and RN be for those that have bitten the bullet with their undergrad degree. Then the schools can focus harder on better preparing the BSNs clinically speaking. But it's not gonna happen b/c it's a big seller for the CCs. If people want to save money, let them take the required social sciences and sciences in the CC, just as someone that is in a non-formal PB PM would. Let it meet all the same academic requirements. Then transfer that over to the BSN program.

As you know, since the 90's, the NCLEX went to P/F. The AACN CCRN was not merely P/F; and they broke things down for you systematically, so you could better assess your strengths and weaknesses. I aced it, but it was a more challenging exam by far; however, it was not a 2 day affair like the NCLEX was back in the day.

As it stands, there are just too many people that think professional RN is merely a glorified nursing assistant. Whatever.
 
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IDK about the shortage issue you suggest; b/c the demand for RNs is nothing like it was back when I first graduated from nursing school. They were just very picky about whom they allowed into critical care areas, so that's where things like board scores and such tended to matter.
Truth is, in many areas, ADNs, much less diploma RNs and even a number of BSNs are not finding jobs.

I say eliminate all the nonsense and just make the BSN programs tougher, incorporating more real clinical nursing aspects earlier on in the programs. You have a number of people that don't go the BSN route, and I feel, at least for some of them, it's about them getting to a better paying job in a shorter period of time. Let them make the longer term commitment.

If 2 years is enough to turn out competent nurses who perform as fully trained RNs, adding 2 years to their burden--times tens of thousands of people--is a lot of wasted life, especially if the reasons are just political. It also represents an enormous transfer of wealth from the individuals to institutions in the form of tuition payments, again without practical benefit. If someone going into nursing in order to earn a better living than they could in retail is somehow an impure motivation for an individual, how else to describe the schools' requirement that students train for twice as long as is demonstrably necessary?

As for the nursing shortage... there are approximately as many licensed RNs working outside the profession as within it at any given time. This is because, although nursing does provide an upper working class to lower middle class income, the work that is required to earn that money is often crushing to body and soul. In many cases, it is performed in unsafe conditions, without appropriate assistive equipment and in a setting of inadequate staffing, which sets nurses up to fail. More is required of them than can possibly be accomplished, yet they are expected to do it all and to find time to document it all thoroughly. However much better than working at the dollar store the pay might be, it isn't enough to keep about half of all fully qualified nurses in the profession. They either retrain for another good paying career, or they prioritize their physical and emotional health over their economic well-being and take a pay cut by working only part-time, or even by going back to retail.

The thing is, they keep their licenses up to date. When there is a period of economic stress, when they or a spouse or a family member is laid off, and they need something that isn't going to be pulled out from under them, they all come out of the woodwork, back into nursing. And nurses who were planning to retire, they put it off for another year, or two, or five. The jobs fill up, and new grads don't find it as easy to get choice positions. (The nursing homes are always out there, always hiring.) When the economy improves, you start seeing the exodus again. I could tell when the recession was starting to abate because my phone and email started blowing up with offers... and I wasn't even looking.

There isn't a nursing shortage. There wasn't one back in the early 2000s, though it was talked about alot. It was just a boom time in the global economy. Irrational exuberance. When the tech bubble popped and then the housing crisis went down, suddenly, there was a surplus of nurses and it was hard to get a job for a few years. There is a cycle, but it isn't in the demand for nurses... just in the supply of ones willing to work under the prevailing conditions for the terms being offered. Raise the terms or improve the conditions, and you won't see so many nurses leaving the profession only a few years after entering it.
 
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Umm... nurses fresh out of school are generally making 50-60k or more. This is not "lower middle class" it's above the national average for a family of 4. Having a 2 parent RN household earns enough to be considered upper middle class. It is a very accessible and lucrative job considering the low barrier of entry and possibility of doing it in 2 yrs at CC with the BSN online and covered in cost by your employer while working the first couple yrs.
 
If 2 years is enough to turn out competent nurses who perform as fully trained RNs, adding 2 years to their burden--times tens of thousands of people--is a lot of wasted life, especially if the reasons are just political. It also represents an enormous transfer of wealth from the individuals to institutions in the form of tuition payments, again without practical benefit. If someone going into nursing in order to earn a better living than they could in retail is somehow an impure motivation for an individual, how else to describe the schools' requirement that students train for twice as long as is demonstrably necessary?

As for the nursing shortage... there are approximately as many licensed RNs working outside the profession as within it at any given time. This is because, although nursing does provide an upper working class to lower middle class income, the work that is required to earn that money is often crushing to body and soul. In many cases, it is performed in unsafe conditions, without appropriate assistive equipment and in a setting of inadequate staffing, which sets nurses up to fail. More is required of them than can possibly be accomplished, yet they are expected to do it all and to find time to document it all thoroughly. However much better than working at the dollar store the pay might be, it isn't enough to keep about half of all fully qualified nurses in the profession. They either retrain for another good paying career, or they prioritize their physical and emotional health over their economic well-being and take a pay cut by working only part-time, or even by going back to retail.

The thing is, they keep their licenses up to date. When there is a period of economic stress, when they or a spouse or a family member is laid off, and they need something that isn't going to be pulled out from under them, they all come out of the woodwork, back into nursing. And nurses who were planning to retire, they put it off for another year, or two, or five. The jobs fill up, and new grads don't find it as easy to get choice positions. (The nursing homes are always out there, always hiring.) When the economy improves, you start seeing the exodus again. I could tell when the recession was starting to abate because my phone and email started blowing up with offers... and I wasn't even looking.

There isn't a nursing shortage. There wasn't one back in the early 2000s, though it was talked about alot. It was just a boom time in the global economy. Irrational exuberance. When the tech bubble popped and then the housing crisis went down, suddenly, there was a surplus of nurses and it was hard to get a job for a few years. There is a cycle, but it isn't in the demand for nurses... just in the supply of ones willing to work under the prevailing conditions for the terms being offered. Raise the terms or improve the conditions, and you won't see so many nurses leaving the profession only a few years after entering it.

I hear you. But as a profession, it makes most sense to make the baseline education bachelor's. I mean you can't even teach primary school children without a bachelor's. In many cases, the RN must have a ton more knowledge than a primary level or even junior high school teacher. So, looking at the big picture, professionally speaking, it absolutely makes sense to make BSN baseline education for nurses....but that's really a whole other discussion--and most of us here are past getting all bent out of shape over it one way or another, b/c we are all now moving in a different direction. :)

But really schools are inundated with RN wannabes; b/c it pays better than working at the diner or dpt store. That's a sad reason to go into nursing iMHO. Schools are making $$$$ off of grad school programs and those with bachelor's in other degrees but go through an accelerated RN program--that's kind of concerning to me as well. The solid models for nursing are fading away; but the schools are still getting inundated with applications. Had a girl call me up to ask for help with her chemistry; but b/c of some other commitments, I couldn't really help her--and also, I assessed that she didn't want to put in the work. If you aren't willing to put the work in, know teacher, tutor, or magic wand is going to help you--short of cheating, and that isn't really helping either. So raising the terms is a good idea in order to separate the wheat from the tares, so to speak. They'll make it. They will get a job--more probability of obtaining one w/ a BSN nowadays than w/o one. But they may have to move around a bit. Most will start at $50,000. Plus they are in a better position to continue on to grad school with the BSN.

In the Philippines and other countries, there are not a 3 different ways to become an RN. They go and get their BSNs, period.

It's idiotic to have all these different ways to become a RN. Just beef up the BSN programs, period. You respect what you have to work harder to obtain.

I am not saying I didn't work hard in my ADN program. But I wasn't as dedicated to getting the highest scores in everything like I was in my BSN. I was a kid when I went for ADN-RN, and I was interested, but I was in the whole learning to learn mode (I call it more of the hippy style of learning, lol) not to have the 4.0 GPA mode through the program. IDK, maybe that helped me score so highly on my board scores; b/c I read without focusing on getting grades--I read, studied, applied the knowledge b/c of a genuine interest in doing so. I didn't take a lot of notes and freak out. Also, I was also interested in other things back then--like having a family. It was in the BSN program that I worked hard to get straight A's, and I did; but I also went to an expensive private school, so I decided to make the most of it all the way around, b/c I was paying a hell of a lot to do it.

Make no mistake, however, I do not HATE nursing. I have enjoyed much in my career, but I also think that it is has to do with me going into critical care and surgical critical care nursing. The higher level of care has helped me hold my interest in it and brought me to moving beyond it. Plus, I do like the patients---although sometimes that's a challenge. :) I never thought I would have liked critical care peds/peds in general, but low and behold, I ended up liking it after working a number of years in adult critical care.

Nowadays, I am not so much in the fight for baseline education in nursing; b/c I am moving into another area. I'm not in the fight to unionize nurses or not unionize nurses. I see both sides; but even a hint of need for unionization wouldn't be there if administrations understood how to treat people with fairness, dignity, and not capriciously. IF only hospital administration/managers/educators understood what striving for truly objective evaluations mean. . . .that's a HUGE part of the problem. Only worked at a few places that really had a better idea about how to do this. Limited BS on evals. You either meet the prognostic indicators or you don't. All the other junk is subjective BS. And you could be the biggest douche in the world and get a nice, subjective eval--even though your patients, other nurses, and doctors know differently--and you are really all about you--not about the patients. It's sad to learn that perception of reality is more highly valued than actually reality. Politics. What are you going to do? It's everywhere. But hey, there are no utopias.
 
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Umm... nurses fresh out of school are generally making 50-60k or more. This is not "lower middle class" it's above the national average for a family of 4. Having a 2 parent RN household earns enough to be considered upper middle class. It is a very accessible and lucrative job considering the low barrier of entry and possibility of doing it in 2 yrs at CC with the BSN online and covered in cost by your employer while working the first couple yrs.
Nurses got a very good deal. I was making 45k/year working 2 days, 24 hrs/wk. A couple of friends I went to school with are making 6 figure salary working 45 hrs/week average with an ADN.
 
Bsns are garbage. You do a bunch of touchy feely projects about how great nurses and Dnps especially are. Pretend to do some work for your community. Write bs papers about how amazing jean watson is and how nurses are leaders. Round it out with some nonsense art projects fit for middle school and a bit about the kidneys here or htn there and that's a bsn. More of an English or creative writing degree than nursing but it does allow you to put at least 3 letters behind your name or 5 when you get the rn. They don't even allow you to put in ivs
 
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I am not a nurse. I was a nursing assistant/emt who will someday be an MD. Just through my post bacc education alone...I feel it's been far intense then the pre-nursing prereq's I completed a few years ago when I was considering nursing school. Though I agree with the OP...I just hope many see the VALUE of a nurse. They are with your patients 24/7. Their observations and knowledge are valuable. On the other hand I do see too many nurses who belittle fresh out of school MD's (and med students!) but I also see far too many MD's with a "God" complex who treat nurses like complete poo. It would be nice to find that happy middle :)

Since my mom is an RN with just her associates degree and now a nursing director...I'll leave the ADN vs BSN argument alone :) That's for another forum entirely.
 
Here's the new meta:
Get nursing degree.
Party through your 20s. Go to vegas every other weekend. Go out on your weekday nights. live an actual life. Don't stress about having to relocate to bum-fxk nowhere just to learn medicine.
Get your Doctorate of nurse practice in your 30s
purchase shiny white coat. go around and demand everyone call you doctor.
Retire by 60.
sounds a hell of alot easier than the bs the medical system puts doctors of allopathy and osteopathy thru. lulz.

Wanna be ahead of the upcoming meta?
go become a doctor of chiropractic or doctor of naturopathic. bribe some local government officials and backdoor your way into more practice rights. lulz.

you guys think i'm joking but this is literally our healthcare system in a nutshell.
 
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Couldn't agree more. I see so many seasoned nurses giving "rookies" a rough time and too many seasoned MD's treating nurses horribly. I feel those MD's became that way due to their initial treatment by those nurses. Vicious cycle!

I don't mind the nursing staff I repeat nursing staff, they do put us through the wringer. They live at that hospital, they really care and watch over patients like hawks. I don't mind that. What I won't stand for is the ones that think that because you're a rookie, you're an idiot who wasted his life in med school. And, because you made some strange remarks, questionable rookie mistakes as an intern, they now think they are greater than physicians. I love, LOVE nurses, I can't emphasizes them enough, I've had this conversation with them. Most new interns will make mistakes, nurses they have more technical knowledge at the time, but after 3-5 months intern year, the Intern is clearly outlast any ICU nurse, and only continues to build while they have plateaued.
 
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I see a mix of bright and caring to not-so-bright and don't care so much, except when it makes them look good. There are plenty of highly intelligent and experienced ADN RNs that blow some BSNs totally out of the water. Ultimately it comes down to the individual.
Agreed. It is definitely more circumstantial. The worst experience for me has been Ivy tech or associate nurse degrees. I dunno, I just don't trust them. But it's from my experiences with them. I double check their reports with other nurses just to make sure.
The RNs here have their shut down, for the most part. But I know it's not the same elsewhere. If you want mixed bag, there's no better example than the OR. Or what I've experienced.
 
I was wondering why I was seeing Psai's garbage, and then I saw that I wasn't signed in.

Anyway, psai, I will bet the whole White House that I have put in more IVs and done more arterial sticks, radial and femoral, than you ever have--go even further than that--way more physical exams as well--and more involved ones for critical care and peds. NOT that that the IV and art sticks means so much. They are simply technical skills with which you must have some safety knowledge, practice, skill, and on a certain days, just plain luck.
Much rather read blood gases than procure them.

Learned a lot in my BSN program; but it's just different in terms of focus---you learn pathophys and diseases, tx, etc, but your focus is first and foremost on patient/family needs--understanding them, meeting them, helping them meet their own needs with education, etc.
Unfortunately, hospitals can dump a lot of other stuff on RNs, BSN/MSN Or not, just to save money. That gets old after a while.

Whatever. God help me to remember to sign in before reading anything on SDN again. Thing was, I signed in, got inundated with calls, requests, etc, and it logged out on me. It's a drag seeing negative people's comments, particularly when they are based in a lot of ignorance. But I guess that is the world of life online.
 
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Couldn't agree more. I see so many seasoned nurses giving "rookies" a rough time and too many seasoned MD's treating nurses horribly. I feel those MD's became that way due to their initial treatment by those nurses. Vicious cycle!


I don't know about how any of the cycle started, except the old saying that **** runs downhill. NOT everyone is happy in what they are doing in healthcare, and the idiotic politics at times can be too much--like there isn't enough Zofran in the world. . . .

I don't let nurses treat the interns poorly in July or thereafter--even if the intern is stubborn, usually a good resident will try to bring him or her along about playing well with all the healthcare people. At the same time, I respectfully do not take a lot of crap. You can tell the people that are going to be good docs, b/c they realize which nurses really give a damn about what they are doing and their patients and are on top of things--and they are cool with working with people like that, b/c ultimately that is their goal also.

Doesn't matter what you do in life, there are always those negative, toxic people floating around or butting up against you somewhere--doesn't matter what their discipline is either. Whenever possible, you have to look past them. YOU will never make them happy; b/c they just aren't going to accept their own responsibility for that.
 
Anyway, psai, I will bet the whole White House that I have put in more IVs and done more arterial sticks, radial and femoral, than you ever have--go even further than that--way more physical exams as well--and more involved ones for critical care and peds. NOT that that the IV and art sticks means so much. They are simply technical skills with which you must have some safety knowledge, practice, skill, and on a certain days, just plain luck.
Much rather read blood gases than procure them.

I could stare at the inner workings of a jet engine for months but it doesn't mean I have any clue what the **** I'm looking at.
 
Doesn't matter what you do in life, there are always those negative, toxic people floating around or butting up against you somewhere--doesn't matter what their discipline is either. Whenever possible, you have to look past them. YOU will never make them happy; b/c they just aren't going to accept their own responsibility for that.
Not disagreeing but only saying it becomes a problem when they're the ones controlling your future. And not just nurses.
Also, there may not be a nursing shortage, persay. But I have seen nurses fired from their jobs and put in other places even though they don't want to work there. When you have a nurse trained and comfortable in the ICU setting who's suddenly let go because of budget cuts and put into palliative care, you kind of raise an eyebrow. I'm just saying nurses are kind of being pushed into working in specialties they have no desire doing because of "the demand".
 
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I could stare at the inner workings of a jet engine for months but it doesn't mean I have any clue what the **** I'm looking at.


LOL. If you are educated in such, you do, else it would be pointless. The materials that med students and NPs use to perform physical assessments were the same used in my nursing program. Assuming is just stupid.

But to prevent more buddy-circling-arguments and back&forth, I'm just gonna use my instincts and check of the ole ignore button GWDS.

....That's better.
 
LOL. If you are educated in such, you do, else it would be pointless. The materials that med students and NPs use to perform physical assessments were the same used in my nursing program. Assuming is just stupid.

But to prevent more buddy-circling-arguments and back&forth, I'm just gonna use my instincts and check of the ole ignore button GWDS.

....That's better.

It's nice to bury your head in the sand, but it does you no favors.

If you can't understand that a nursing physical assessment with nursing education is different than a physician's assessment with a physician education, this truly is another fine example highlighting that sometimes you just don't know how much you don't know.
 
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Anyone can go through the motions of a physical exam. It's the anatomy and physiology we learn in medical school that helps us interpret the exam. Our bread and butter pimp questions throughout third and fourth year of school consist of: what direction will the eye deviate if the superior rectus does not contract? Why will there be a pupillary defect with normal eye movements when the rectus muscle and pupils are both innervated by CN 3? Which CN tracts near cavernous sinus and what would you look for if there was a compression? Localize the lesion for ipsilateral vs contralateral loss of pain, temp sensation, vibration, or muscle strength for a right hemisection. Differential for resting tremor vs active tremor, and now the Differential for active tremor. What's the difference between a rale and rhonchi and when will you see each? Name four things that can can cause the expiratory wheeze you just heard and I don't want to hear asthma/copd. Will squatting, standing, hand grip, inspiration/expiration, valsalva, left lateral decubitus increase or decrease the murmur you heard? What is the murmur and describe it as crescendo/decrescendo, systolic/diastolic/holistic, and which valve? Is P2 wide? If so, is it wider with inspiration or expiration. And why does this pediatric patient have a fixed split s2?


I hope you get the point... There's more to a physical exam than just going through the motions. Every second year medical student can answer these questions before third year rotations. This is easy bread and butter physical diagnosis 1st semester material.
 
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Anyone can go through the motions of a physical exam. It's the anatomy and physiology we learn in medical school that helps us interpret the exam. Our bread and butter pimp questions throughout third and fourth year of school consist of: what direction will the eye deviate if the superior rectus does not contract? Why will there be a pupillary defect with normal eye movements when the rectus muscle and pupils are both innervated by CN 3? Which CN tracts near cavernous sinus and what would you look for if there was a compression? Localize the lesion for ipsilateral vs contralateral loss of pain, temp sensation, vibration, or muscle strength for a right hemisection. Differential for resting tremor vs active tremor, and now the Differential for active tremor. What's the difference between a rale and rhonchi and when will you see each? Name four things that can can cause the expiratory wheeze you just heard and I don't want to hear asthma/copd. Will squatting, standing, hand grip, inspiration/expiration, valsalva, left lateral decubitus increase or decrease the murmur you heard? What is the murmur and describe it as crescendo/decrescendo, systolic/diastolic/holistic, and which valve? Is P2 wide? If so, is it wider with inspiration or expiration. And why does this pediatric patient have a fixed split s2?


I hope you get the point... There's more to a physical exam than just going through the motions. Every second year medical student can answer these questions before third year rotations. This is easy bread and butter physical diagnosis 1st semester material.


LOL, I have never gone through the motions. In fact, it is one of my best abilities, and anyone, physician or nurse or RRT that has worked with me long enough will tell you that. All I can tell you is that for decades physicians have followed my notes/assessments/PEs and have completed the same and were in agreement w/ me. Yes, in cardiology, you do makes those assessments, document them, and more. The key to examinations and assessments is experience over and over and over and over. Working a lot of cardiology as an ICU RN, I have picked up murmurs before others and before the echo. These kinds of detailed questions are also on the CCRN, critical care certifying exam--not to mention a great about of hemodynamics and pathophysiologies.

My God if you work as an RN in ICU for years, with peds and adults, and you don't know how to distinguish crackles/rales from rhonchi, you're in big trouble. You had better be able to know when a kid is in bronchospasm ASAP as well.
Dude, you don't know me, or my experience/s over two decades. So give it a rest.
Assuming, as I said before, is stupid.
Now, I have to do yet another ignore.
 
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Anyone can go through the motions of a physical exam. It's the anatomy and physiology we learn in medical school that helps us interpret the exam. Our bread and butter pimp questions throughout third and fourth year of school consist of: what direction will the eye deviate if the superior rectus does not contract? Why will there be a pupillary defect with normal eye movements when the rectus muscle and pupils are both innervated by CN 3? Which CN tracts near cavernous sinus and what would you look for if there was a compression? Localize the lesion for ipsilateral vs contralateral loss of pain, temp sensation, vibration, or muscle strength for a right hemisection. Differential for resting tremor vs active tremor, and now the Differential for active tremor. What's the difference between a rale and rhonchi and when will you see each? Name four things that can can cause the expiratory wheeze you just heard and I don't want to hear asthma/copd. Will squatting, standing, hand grip, inspiration/expiration, valsalva, left lateral decubitus increase or decrease the murmur you heard? What is the murmur and describe it as crescendo/decrescendo, systolic/diastolic/holistic, and which valve? Is P2 wide? If so, is it wider with inspiration or expiration. And why does this pediatric patient have a fixed split s2?


I hope you get the point... There's more to a physical exam than just going through the motions. Every second year medical student can answer these questions before third year rotations. This is easy bread and butter physical diagnosis 1st semester material.
I'm at the end of my second year of IM residency and I couldn't answer half of those questions anymore. You're clearly still a medical student, because you have no clue what is (in the long run) important and what is trivia.
 
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Anyone can go through the motions of a physical exam. It's the anatomy and physiology we learn in medical school that helps us interpret the exam. Our bread and butter pimp questions throughout third and fourth year of school consist of: what direction will the eye deviate if the superior rectus does not contract? Why will there be a pupillary defect with normal eye movements when the rectus muscle and pupils are both innervated by CN 3? Which CN tracts near cavernous sinus and what would you look for if there was a compression? Localize the lesion for ipsilateral vs contralateral loss of pain, temp sensation, vibration, or muscle strength for a right hemisection. Differential for resting tremor vs active tremor, and now the Differential for active tremor.

I hope you get the point... There's more to a physical exam than just going through the motions. Every second year medical student can answer these questions before third year rotations. This is easy bread and butter physical diagnosis 1st semester material.

Oh no! Not neuroanatomy again!:(
 
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LOL, I have never gone through the motions. In fact, it is one of my best abilities, and anyone, physician or nurse or RRT that has worked with me long enough will tell you that. All I can tell you is that for decades physicians have followed my notes/assessments/PEs and have completed the same and were in agreement w/ me. Yes, in cardiology, you do makes those assessments, document them, and more. The key to examinations and assessments is experience over and over and over and over. Working a lot of cardiology as an ICU RN, I have picked up murmurs before others and before the echo. These kinds of detailed questions are also on the CCRN, critical care certifying exam--not to mention a great about of hemodynamics and pathophysiologies.

My God if you work as an RN in ICU for years, with peds and adults, and you don't know how to distinguish crackles/rales from rhonchi, you're in big trouble. You had better be able to know when a kid is in bronchospasm ASAP as well.
Dude, you don't know me, or my experience/s over two decades. So give it a rest.
Assuming, as I said before, is stupid.
Now, I have to do yet another ignore.

You literally don't know what you don't know.
 
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I'm at the end of my second year of IM residency and I couldn't answer half of those questions anymore. You're clearly still a medical student, because you have no clue what is (in the long run) important and what is trivia.

Yeah, the answers to many of those questions were MRI, TTE, CXR.
 
Haha. I'm totally not looking forward to the day when I tell all my nursing instructors that I'm planning to go to med school. Right now I need some financial stability and a great way to get exposure to healthcare is nursing. I wish I was comfortable enough to risk it all and take loans to do a post-bacc, but I'd rather get the RN and work while I do a post-bacc. Nursing school is a cakewalk and I am terrified of classmates that are scraping by with minimum passes. I'll never go the NP route because I want to practice medicine and not imitate those who actually do. Physicians are the alphas of healthcare and those who fail to recognize don't know their role in the system.
Actually, administrators tend to be the "alphas" of healthcare, and most of them are nurses.
 
I'm at the end of my second year of IM residency and I couldn't answer half of those questions anymore. You're clearly still a medical student, because you have no clue what is (in the long run) important and what is trivia.

Nope... Also a resident. My post said typical pimp questions to get the point across that a physical exam is more than just going through the motions which is done more often than not. Guilty if it myself sometimes, but I wasn't the one bragging about doing more physical exams than another person on the thread.
 
LOL. If you are educated in such, you do, else it would be pointless. The materials that med students and NPs use to perform physical assessments were the same used in my nursing program. Assuming is just stupid.

But to prevent more buddy-circling-arguments and back&forth, I'm just gonna use my instincts and check of the ole ignore button GWDS.

....That's better.

lmao
A PA thought we had the same education just because I was glancing at clinical microbio made ridiculously easy as if that was the extent of my education in infectious disease.
A nursing assessment and a physical exam are two completely different things. You can do similar things but it's the thought process that counts. The movements I perform for the physical exams that I did as a first year medical student and as a third year medical student are not vastly different but the thought process behind it is so different. I now try to think about the differential and decide what to do based on that instead of running through a mental checklist of all the systems
 
Nah I get what s/he is saying. Its a bit off what I was talking about though. I meant to just say that nurses are hostile in general. There are studies upon studies showing that nursing promotes criticism between coworkers to assert superiority. It comes out within the nursing community, as well as between nurses and doctors they feel are inexperienced

Edit: and I also respect nurses. Most of the women in my family tree are/were RNs

I agree. I'm an rn. I think it has to do with the fact that our job requires us to spend more time with the patients than MDs. And sick patient's rub off on one's temperment and personality. I find this to be ward dependent too. The nurses and MDsat the ambulatory surg floors are pretty chill and laid back. The ones in psych facilities are have weird personality traits (every staff member- docs, nurses, guards, etc). But the ones on telemetry and icu can be quite hostile and stressed out. I now work in home health (going to people's homes to administer RN care). I always feel like a welcomed guest when I go into a stable patient's home; so I generally don't feel stressed with my line of work now. It was quite different in the inpatient setting. I guess the work setting promotes certain behaviors.
 
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It's really bull****. The nurses I know that went the NP or CRNA route, when asked "if you want to practice independently, why don't you go to medical school?" would give me one of two answers. The first, was "I don't want all of the responsibility that physicians have. I want to work a 9-5 and go home," while the other group would generally answer, "I am too busy/too lazy/too impatient to go to medical school." So you basically end up with one group that wants a full scope of practice without a full scope of responsibility or education, while the other group wants a full scope of practice and full responsibility without a full education. I'm sure there are people that fall outside of these two particular groups, but the vast majority of nurses I know that are taking (part time!) APRN courses fall into one or the other. That physicians are losing their place at the top of the medical hierarchy to a group of underqualified caregivers that lack the dedication and sacrifice required to go through medical school and residency is depressing to say the least.

I don't want to go off on a sociopolitical tirade, but I really feel it is a side effect of the current anti-wealth, anti-intellectual, and anti-science movements that exist in different areas of the political spectrum. Physicians possess wealth, intellect, and a science-based career, so we take flak from every direction, while nurses, with their middle class pay, everyman level of education, and holistic and caring approach to health care tend to get nothing but praise from the masses. This is not to say that nurses do not possess valuable skills, nor that they are villains, but rather that they are playing on the emotional heartstrings of society to further an agenda that benefits them professionally but will ultimately result in a lower level of patient care being delivered in this country.

I agree with much of what you say. It's the "wealth" part of "Physicians possess wealth, intellect, and a science-based career" that is motivating this movement. Most people are not anti-wealth; in fact, most people would do/say incredible things (including lobbying for more lax mid-level autonomy) for the chance to get paid like docs do. This movement is 99% motivated by economics- if regulations are relaxed, more people can get a piece of the pie. This is a capitalistic society. This is what we do.
 
As someone who is about to complete medical school, and who went through nursing school for a BSN, the knowledge gap between the two is exponential. In light of recent arguments made by militant nurses who argue that the required nursing courses to complete an associates degree or BSN is just as good as medical school. First you take an A&P, 101 course on microbiology, a introductory 12 week course in "orgo/gen chem, Biochem" all combined superficially in 12 weeks, 12 week course in Pathophysiology 101. Looking back those courses, they were very superficial at the amount of knowledge required to pass. Those science courses were no where near the complexity that medical schools dig into, where things get broken down into the mechanism of protein structures that allow them to function a certain way. With out understanding the complexities of the inner workings of what actually occur at the cellular level, you can't begin to understand what went wrong when the ALGORITHM they are trained to follow doesn't go according to plan. Then comes the nursing courses, and the "clinicals" that they do. The actual nursing courses were good enough to understand and complete NURSING tasks. They were not good enough to treat and effectively manage complex disease, but when I was a nursing student at that time I thought I knew just as much as a doctor, and I was dead wrong. The clinicals were a joke, you passed out meds,maybe gave a few injections, changed wet diapers on incontinent patients, and followed the orders given by the doctor. I am all about advanced education, but there is NO DIFFERENCE in the fundamental knowledge between a RN VS BSN other than some "nursing research courses and fluff to get fancy titles like clinical nurse specialist, or infection control specialist" but the core principles are EXACTLY THE SAME. So when they claim they have a BSN not an associates in nursing, there is NO difference, and I dare you to find me a BSN who would say there is. Something else that ticks me off I hear from nurses trying to be MD's is " I have 15+ years in the ICU, ER, or MED/SURG floor," that counts as more education like a residency. Good for you! But, when I worked as a nurses assistant for 5+ years I didn't claim to know or be equivalent to a RN just because I saw what they did, and helped them carry out orders. How would NURSES like it if LPN's claimed to be EQUIVALENT to RN's/BSN's? Probably wouldn't go well. I am not knocking down the profession of nursing, what I am annoyed with is NURSES/NP's claiming to be equivalent to MD's. You are not, you were trained in the NURSING SCOPE of practice. I love nurses, yes I would trust a seasoned ICU nurse's opinion vs a Freshly minted MD out of med school in July as an Intern, but I guarantee that by the end of 3-4 months of intern year, his knowledge base will increase exponentialy to surpass that of any ICU nurse due to his knowledge base gained from 8 years of education that doesn't stop during residency, and now applying it daily as a intern. So nurses I beg you to please just work within your scope as a nurse, and stop trying to claim equivelancy through studies "propaganda" funded by the militant nurses association.



moon.jpg
 
Let the midlevels work at the "top of their license" whatever that means.

Have you noticed the number of initials after a person's name is inversely proportional to their actual knowledge?

I prefer to work the way I work.

MD
 
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What about the curriculum? Is that standardized across all programs that award the BSN or ADN?
Bwahahaha.
Nothing is close to as standardized and regulated as medical school. SW, psychology, nothing.
And physicians can't do online classes or carry another job at the same time either
 
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I agree with much of what you say. It's the "wealth" part of "Physicians possess wealth, intellect, and a science-based career" that is motivating this movement. Most people are not anti-wealth; in fact, most people would do/say incredible things (including lobbying for more lax mid-level autonomy) for the chance to get paid like docs do. This movement is 99% motivated by economics- if regulations are relaxed, more people can get a piece of the pie. This is a capitalistic society. This is what we do.
The regulations and training are there for a reason
. If i have barber training and a barber license, I'd be a barber.
 
1. To be honest, spend 5 minutes talking to a nurse and you'll see they are no intellectual threat to replacing doctors whatsoever. As a group they just don't have the brain power.

2. The only thing that can really lower the income of a physician, is another physician willing to work for less ( looking at you pathology) so don't flood the market and salary, thus social standing, thus prestige will prevail.

3. Doctors aren't losing their position at the top of the medical hierarchy, a doctor will always be a doctor, and a nurse will always be a nurse.

I honestly don't know why nurses make so much money, I think the national average now is right around 68k, given that its such an easy course of study more people should go into it. That would flood the market with nurses, lower their salary, and make them happy they even have a job. Make the new standard some sort of associates degree, refuse to higher BSNs.
 
Im an RN in the process of taking my prerequisites for medical school and I can honestly say that organic chemistry is much harder than any nursing course I've taken throughout my 4 years as a nursing student.
 
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Im an RN in the process of taking my prerequisites for medical school and I can honestly say that organic chemistry is much harder than any nursing course I've taken throughout my 4 years as a nursing student.
ANd the least important of all courses as it relates to medicine. Hang in there.
 
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Hope ya didn't pay too much for those fluff courses.

Ha. Your insecurity is showing.

Your comment is supposed to be a dig at medical school similar to how people argue that the DNP includes a tremendous amount of fluff (nursing leadership, nursing activism, statistics) instead of more clinical hours, more physiology, more pathophys and more pharm. However, the parallel isn't accurate for many reasons. First, Orgo is a pre-rec and not actual medical education. Medical schools aren't using it to supplant something useful. Medical schools aren't taking out learning about the lungs so that people can take Orgo (while NP/DNP education does just this to prepare the next round of nursing lobbyists).

Second, it is meant as a weed out course. It is used so that you have intelligent people in medical school.

Finally, it is useful to have a strong background in chem/Orgo for biochem as it moves rather quickly in medical school.
 
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Ha. Your insecurity is showing.

Your comment is supposed to be a dig at medical school similar to how people argue that the DNP includes a tremendous amount of fluff (nursing leadership, nursing activism, statistics) instead of more clinical hours, more physiology, more pathophys and more pharm. However, the parallel isn't accurate for many reasons. First, Orgo is a pre-rec and not actual medical education. Medical schools aren't using it to supplant something useful. Medical schools aren't taking out learning about the lungs so that people can take Orgo (while NP/DNP education does just this to prepare the next round of nursing lobbyists).

Second, it is meant as a weed out course. It is used so that you have intelligent people in medical school.

Finally, it is useful to have a strong background in chem/Orgo for biochem as it moves rather quickly in medical school.

I agree! At my school, orgo 1 and 2 are prerequisites for biochem.
 
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