Degrees are 'step in the right direction', says nursing director

Readers' comments (17)

• Anonymous | 24-Dec-2009 10:04 am

  A lot of research has been done into degree nurses. The patients of degree nurses at the bedside have higher survival rates.
  
  http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/FactSheets/ImpactEdNp.htm Go to that link and scroll down.
  
  and
  
  http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/K/5/pub5064.html
  
  Today's RN's need critical thinking, reasoning, and analytical skills and all that comes from a university education. The universities certainly teach their nursing students that the nursing assessment is the most important part of the nursing process. i.e. If you don't bathe your own patient you cannot assess them properly and then you will fail to pick up changes in condition and or plan their care properly.
  
  Not doing basic care yourself means you are working blind. Full stop. Nurses know this.
  
  Degree nursing students know that basic care is their role but they also know that the hospital bosses will make sure that they are given way more patients than they can handle, every shift, regardless of how many incident forms etc are going in.
  
  This means that the nurse has to prioritise and delegate to the health care assistants the only thing that care assistants can do among the millions of things that are going on in that ward all at once: basic care.
  
  Degree level education for nurses is not the problem here. Degree nurses' attitudes are not the problem here.
  
  Hospital bosses are the problem.
  
  Another big problem is that we have a society that is so backward that they cannot understand why an RN needs an education nor do they understand why an RN taking care of 20 critical patients at once cannot care for everyone's needs at all times.

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• Anonymous | 27-Dec-2009 9:06 pm

  I absolutely agree with the previous comment. Health Care is continually changing, expectations increase and nurses are dealing with ever more complex health problems. If nurses are not adequately trained to critically analyse then of course patient care will suffer.
  
  Some seem to fear a loss of compassion in the delivery of care if students nurses are taught in a classroom but being educated and compassionate are not mutually exclusive attributes. Provided the right people are excepted on to nurse training programs and compassion and care are kept in clear focus then there should not be a problem.

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• Anonymous | 28-Dec-2009 1:58 pm

  I am a degree holder, my boss is non-degree holder. do you think who will have say on patient care?
  
  I discuss with him about my nursing care plan. He argue that HE IS THE BOSS.
  
  I suggest to him changes. He said the change must come from HEAD NURSE.
  
  I am a degree holder, I am paid as band 5. My colleagues are non-degree holder, they are paid as band 6. My boss is non-degree nursing. He is being paid band 7 and HE IS THE WARD MANAGER.

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• Anonymous | 29-Dec-2009 11:28 am

  Some manager can be a pain in the neck! My manager who is also a non-degree holder preventing me for doing the degree course. He refused to give me any study leave even i am keen to be self sponsor. What is their problems???

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• Anna Lincoln | 30-Dec-2009 4:09 pm

  They have an inferiority complex. They are afraid of being condsidered obsolete even though that is nonsense. Non degree RN's who have been doing their jobs for awhile are excellent because of all the experience they have.
  
  But the future requires newly trained nurses to have degrees. And an education does not make one less compassionate.
  
  I think it is funny when people say that degree nurses don't want to be at the bedside.
  
  The facts of the matter are this:
  
  Most University educated nurses are newer nurses and therefore most of them are at the bedside, gaining experience.
  
  Most of the managment / clipboard ( i dont wanna get my hands dirty) types who screw everything up were trained the old fashioned way and are clueless about today's issues.
  
  They (older traditional trained nurses) have thrown the younger nurses to the sharks with disgustingly poor ratios and poor working environments that leave the ward nurses unable to function.
  
  Thanks a lot old timers. Real compassionate your old fashioned training was!
  
  

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• Anonymous | 2-Jan-2010 0:27 am

  Its nice to see so much respect for older experienced nurses being expressed on here.
  
  Of course your boss may not have a degree but are you seriously suggesting he/she should bow to your superior experience? Or was that superior knowledge?
  
  So an experience nurse of some 20 years front line work is now what? Worthless?
  
  Its strange but I see a lot of degree nurses who demonstrate good knowledge of their own limitations and are willing to learn - often stating "they didn't teach me that in uni!"
  
  Its also a two way process of us learning from them - but as the senior partner the decision rests with the senior nurse for good reason - no one is going to hold a nurse even with a degree responsible over a senior member of staff are they?
  
  I have 4 years to go and will retire and it cant come soon enough.
  
  I feel nursing is going to be a vocational practice which only middle class students will apply.
  
  An awful lot of potentially excellent nurses will be excluded as they will not be able to afford the debt that comes with training. Or have had to leave full time education due to being young carers etc.
  
  Maybe I am mistaken, will lots of opportunities be available for young people having to work full time to support their families be able to afford to go into nursing?
  
  And here we all are moaning how there are never enough nurses! A good move to exclude so many people?

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• Anna Lincoln | 2-Jan-2010 1:01 pm

  No one is saying that diploma nurses etc are inferior. The facts are this: Nursing is so demanding now that a person who cannot handle a Bsc will probably not be able to handle nursing.
  
  It costs tons and tons and tons of money to train as a nurse in the USA. Tons. Tons tons tons.
  
  It will cost you tens upon thousands every year that you train whether you do a diploma ( a few diploma programs are still in existance there), an associates degree or a BSc.
  
  And they have more people applying to nursing school than there are places. They work their way through school.

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• Anna Lincoln | 2-Jan-2010 1:02 pm

  "No one is saying that diploma nurses etc are inferior. The facts are this: Nursing is so demanding now that a person who cannot handle a Bsc will probably not be able to handle nursing."
  
  Should have added "will not be able to handle nursing in the future." It's a lot tougher than anything a social worker or teacher does and they are an all graduate profession.
  

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• Anna Lincoln | 2-Jan-2010 1:04 pm

  And most of the older trained nurses are no longer on the wards and haven't been since 1985. They are sat in an office somewhere, refusing to go near a patient, and devising more paperwork for the ward nurses. They sit on their bottoms and declare the younger nurses who are going through hell running between too many patients as "lacking in compassion".

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• Clive Tannant | 2-Jan-2010 10:39 pm

  Hmm, Anna, your professional respect leaves something to be desired. Is that something they've taught you on your degree course?
  
  Many of the nurses needing to be chased out of the office is not something restricted to senior nurses!
  
  Sitting on their bottoms is no longer a choice for a lot of managers or nurses either - but talking out of them is!

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• Anna Lincoln | 5-Jan-2010 4:09 pm

  Clive I was a diploma nurse before a degree nurse. Yawn.
  
  You won't see any floor nurses on large acute wards hanging about the office or station unless they are getting constant interruptions from phone calls or having to spend two hours handing over because of the sheer number of patients they have.
  
  We wouldn't know what managers do since we never see them on the wards. Ever.

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• Anonymous | 5-Jan-2010 6:51 pm

  I find it interesting how the focus is put on people who are not academic missing out on entering nursing. Has no one considered the brilliant young minds we miss out on because nursing is not viewed as a viable option?
  
  I myself am a 4th year nursing student about to finish my masters degree. When I told people I was going to become a nurse the response was often "why don't you become a doctor?" as I had the academic qualifications to do so. Instead I chose nursing, not because it is the inferior option but rather it is a completely different profession which is constantly evolving. This offered me a real option to not just help patients, but contribute to a whole science.
  
  We should be proud of ourselves and how our profession has developed and how far it has come, rather than fight between ourselves as to who's better than who. Currently we are standing at a cross-road in the development of our profession in which the whole world is watching. Personally I think we should grasp this opportunity with both hands and all work together to develop nursing for the better. That includes managers, commissioners, researchers, staff nurses, sisters, student nurses, HCAs etc.
  
  I hope that as I qualify in the next year I can look forward to a fantastic career contributing to a fantastic profession within a truly unique and diverse health service.

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• Anonymous | 5-Jan-2010 11:19 pm

  my boss who i was referring is a non-degree and he is younger than me. he was an HCA the after sometime he became band5 staff nurse then band 6 then after a yr band 7. i am a foreign nurse with 15 yrs of experience of acute medical and surgical nursing. i have also experience in theatre setting and clinical research. i also practiced in far east and middle east before coming to the UK. considering my vast experience, my boss is scare i might "eat" him alive. that's why he doesnt listen to suggestions, especially mine. but i am happy to share my experiences, especially to my students. i was also nominated by patients for a hospital staff award, my boss said I FORCED MY PATIENTS to do so. lucky him he is WEARING A BLUE UNIFORM and I am educated professionally (and raised by my parents properly), otherwise he will get what he wanted.

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• Anna Lincoln | 6-Jan-2010 7:49 am

  I have no problem with managers not having a degrees. Fine with me. I don't care if they are an EN, RN, old trained or degree trained.
  
  I have a problems with older nurses who have left the bedside decades ago repeatedly attacking bedside nurses in the press, on this site, and everywhere else whilst not realising that acuity has increased on the wards while the number of real nurses has decreased. They put the lack of care down to overeducated nurses who don't have compassion rather than seeing what the real problems are and then they indulge in the favourite nurse pastime-eating their young.

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• al rei | 6-Jan-2010 1:07 pm

  I totally agree with the comments made by Anna Lincoln. I am a degree student with first class honours however I love my job and I enjoy working with clients/patients.
  Of course i am not perfect and there are things that I still need training to perfect but my experiences on ward has shown that there is a great need for nurses educated at degree level.
  It is frightening to listening to some colleagues giving handover and not to mention the dreaded entries in patients notes. Sometimes i find my self answering questions to doctors who are astonished at my knowledge and often admitted secretly that such knowledge is not usual in a nurse.
  Please do not misinterpret my comments, i dare not say that experience does not account for wisdom however a lot of our older nurses are stuck in the past ways of doing things and refuses to embrace changes and i think this is one crucial issue that is affecting the care at the bedside or in the community at this time.
  Globalization is affecting us all and nurses needs to rise to the challenges of the 21st century and beyond to maximise not only the professional standards but the care administered to clients and their loved ones.

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• Anonymous | 8-Jan-2010 2:24 pm

  It was so interesting to read all of the above entries, particularly as I'm one of the "pensioners" in our profession!
  The first thing I'd like to say is that being a nurse is something to be proud of and it takes a heart, a brain and working hands to be a good one. Not many professionals can boast that they use all three components at the same time, every hour of every working day.
  The second thing that I would like to say is that as we are all professionals, it is important that not only are we competent, but that our demeanor reflects that - in every way. This means that how we speak about our colleagues should always be done with professional respect and dignity. They say that if you are critical of someone, it is because you see some element of yourself in them....a bit like looking in a mirror.....think before you speak.
  I trained in another country so was stunned to realise recently that degree nurses are not the norm in the UK. As it happens, I'm a Diploma nurse and am very happy with the way my career and my competency has developed. I have worked with wonderful Degree nurses who have been intelligent, clear thinking, diligent, compassionate and fun (yes fun!) colleagues. I have also worked with some real doozies from both training camps and they need to be shot at dawn - in other words, they should never have got past the first interview door to study nursing.
  

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• Anonymous | 9-Jan-2010 5:50 pm

  I am a diploma student due to qualify in 12 weeks time (actually its 11 now) and after reading the above comments it has reduced my confidence a little, not in myself, as I know I will be a good nurse (I love my job and am very passionate and keen to learn in all areas) but in how other people are going to percieve me and respect my working knowledge.
  
  Because I am a diploma student in no way does this make me less competent and less able to do a good job.

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