Have you ever experienced being turned down for a nursing job because the 
institution where you’re applying in only accepts registered nurses with a bachelor’s degree?
This hiring trend is becoming more common as more and more institutions are starting to choose BSN graduate RNs over those with associate degrees or those from diploma school. Though their licensing body and their license is the same,the difference is that nurses who graduated with a bachelor’s degree are provided with promotional opportunities and positions in management.
The article stated some reasons from researchers, nurse executives, and chief nurses as to why this is so. One said that nurses with a bachelor’s degree produce better patient outcomes and results of their study revealed that every 10-percentage-point increase in the proportion of nurses with a bachelor’s degree in a hospital is associated with a 5 percent decline in patient mortality.
While associate degree graduates are technically proficient, nurses with bachelor’s degrees say that nurses today work with increasingly complex machines and patients according to those who prefer BSN grads.
Another chief nurse says that 51% of the nurses in their facility are BSNs and that the system is now subsidizing tuition of 300 employees who are on the process of acquiring their degree. She also expresses her amazement in the performance showed by these BSN graduates.
Nursing, being a highly specialized complex career has to put a higher degree of education as entry into practice. I’m not saying that BSNs are better than ADNs or Diploma. The point is, if nurses want to be in equal footing with other health professionals, then its about time that the degree for entry into practice elevate. Physical Therapy assistants, have a two year associates degree as entry into practice. Recreational Therapists have a Bachelor’s Degree as entry into practice. Physical Therapists have a doctoral degree as entry into practice but a nurse can enter the profession with an Associates Degree, Diploma, or in the case of an LN, a one year post HS education.
One thing that can be done is to provide different levels of certification or different licenses to different nursing courses. There is definitely a difference between a 2-year course and bachelor’s degree so why do they both end up with the same license and title?
Nursing schools on the other hand should observe the hiring trends in the hospitals and be responsible to inform the students about it. It wouldn’t be right to promise an ADN student that they are entering a “recession-proof” profession only to find out after graduation that the chances of getting hired are better for BSN holders.
For institutions who want all their staff to be BSN’s, they should at least have a program that supports continuing education for their employees who want to pursue a higher degree because in the end, it is their facility and their patients that will benefit from what these nurses are learning.
Reference Article from philly.com by Stacey Burling
