BSN programs and liberal arts: IHE article

[mamselle]

There's also a huge attrition rate within a year or so of getting one's first job.

Nurses can be overworked, and underpaid for all they do. They're sometimes forced by staffing shortages to do "doubles" (i.e., two shifts back-to-back), or work nights and weekends only for months on end, because schedule preferences are booked by seniority and the older/longer-standing staff get first choice.

There are cute ways a snippy nurse who's all for themselves can make everyone else miserable, too...while smiling and charming the Charge Nurse and her assistant so that complaints never stick because she really couldn't be THAT bad....but, in fact...

They took "The Nightengales" off the air because of complaints that it showed nurses in such a poor light, but I thought their scriptwriter must have visited some of the hospitals I worked in as a unit clerk/lab EA because the plot lines were so eerily familiar.

Nursing was once, with teaching and secretarial work, one of the triad of respectable jobs for intelligent women (now, of course, it's also more open to guys, many of whom Isaw to be very good.).

Once other options opened up, for all genders, though, many of the best folks largely took off.

So student placements may also be exposing people to the Realpolitik and undermining their will to continue, too.

M.

[polly_mer]

The argument in teacher education for earlier experiences, another area in which I got to advise, was exactly getting a realistic experience early enough to make better choices.  Waiting until last semester of senior year to do student teaching meant a fair number of people graduated, but never became teachers out of the Super Dinky program.  Changing to require classroom observations every term starting from the first one meant that the cohorts were a more manageable size and the weeding happened much earlier.

Super Dinky had an excellent nursing program, but the size was limited by faculty and the clinical slots that mythbuster mentioned.  The standards absolutely should not be lowered, but aspiring nursing students, like premed, tends to attract many people initially who won't succeed in even the initial school part, much less the reality of working with sick, scared, angry patients.

[mythbuster]

     Amen on early realistic experiences. My mom was a nurse administrator for a hospice. She used to get college pre-med student "shadows" every summer. She always instructed the resident they were paired with to find the most unpleasant case in the hospital to start with. See if the student can handle being in the room with the stinky abscess being drained, or C. diff, or the like. Many didn't come back the next day. The shadowing student was never actually asked to do anything, just to be in the room and watch the pros at work.
   The students that did make it through the shadowing experience, she could write great letters of rec for, and made sure they knew which experiences to incorporate into their application essays. This is why I laugh at my pre-nursing students who complain about the smells in the Micro lab. Many seem to confuse being a nurse with being the receptionist at the pediatrician's office.

[polly_mer]

I'm not sure what is so controversial unless Mintz is inaccurate when he catalogs the alternate career paths nursing students might take.

Try reading the comments at https://www.reddit.com/r/InsideHigherEd/comments/hv8u57/why_its_so_difficult_to_get_into_nursing_programs/ and see if you can identify the problems.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm not sure what is so controversial unless Mintz is inaccurate when he catalogs the alternate career paths nursing students might take.

Try reading the comments at https://www.reddit.com/r/InsideHigherEd/comments/hv8u57/why_its_so_difficult_to_get_into_nursing_programs/ and see if you can identify the problems.

Yeah, he's a history professor and does not understand licensing or why some nursing programs are limited admissions ("he doesn't mention clinical sites or state boards as major reasons class sizes are capped")---at least he does not mention any of this in his article.

For instance, as pinkfloydman posted:
"He even failed to mention the TEAS test (Test of Essential Academic Skills) that many programs required before you can even get into a nursing school and failed to account for the accreditation standards of having a percentage of students who need to pass the nursing tests in order for the school to remain accredited."

Okay.

And? 

So?

None of that detracts from his very simple point that we cannot educate everyone who want to become a nurse, however.

Seems to me some people maybe needed to take more writing and research classes as undergrads so they could think their way through simple arguments.

Maybe it's just the fact that he is arguing for the value of a liberal arts degree?  For some reason that really upsets some people.

Or maybe he is commenting outside his discipline and appears not to really understand the discipline he is commenting about.  Now THAT we wouldn't want, now would we Polly?  We certainly don't want people who don't really know what they are talking about making suggestions without thoroughly and fairly thinking through an issue or taking an unnecessarily lopsided approach to a conundrum.  As I said, more argumentation and research would help these folks.

Now, you want to argue because you resent me personally, which is fine, but I am teaching a summer class and working on several articles and a book, so I may not have time to engage in one of our fun discussions.  But you have at it.  You go girl!!!

[kaysixteen]

Now that I think on it, several years back, when I adjuncted at a local uni that has a well-regarded BSN program, competitive for entry (apparently), but where the uni requires all undergrads to take a year of foreign lang, regardless of what they might have taken in hs, several of my students in Latin 101-2 were nursing majors, and, well, though none of them actually failed the class, some, well... let's just say I do recall openly thinking that a student who cannot really succeed at Latin 101 probably was not bright enough to become a nurse.

[mamselle]

Proof by contrapositive: I was sent to temp in a hospital by an awake temp agency rep who noticed I had Latin as one of my languages and said, "You'll be able to do anatomical medical transcription since you know Latin."

M.

[polly_mer]

I'm not sure what is so controversial unless Mintz is inaccurate when he catalogs the alternate career paths nursing students might take.

Let's try an example and see if that helps.

Most people who want to become English professors cannot do so because we don't have enough job slots.

Therefore, entering first-years in college should be encouraged to study chemical engineering instead with the eventual plan to become university institutional researchers.

Being an institutional researcher is much like being an English professor.  You're a professional on campus with flexibility in your schedule.  You'll do a lot of all reading and writing.  As an institutional researcher, you'll attend a lot of meetings and give assignments to people who will ignore basic instructions.  You are likely to have a lot of interactions with students at small teaching schools and much less direct interactions with undergrads at research institutions.

Chemical engineering is great preparation because you'll have lots of practice with group work where you have no authority and doing most of the report writing yourself.  Only about half of people with a BS ChE go into chemical engineering right out of college and it's not rare for those people to go to graduate school in something else or go through a boot camp for data science.

In short, the article is ridiculous because it doesn't show awareness of either the realities of nursing education or the other realistic options with either a solid liberal arts degree or some other type of degree.

Only someone who doesn't actually know anything relevant could have started from the reasonable fact of more people want to enter nursing programs than slots exist and write that article.  The article would have been better if it just stuck to doing something completely different with a different degree.

It is a failure not to get into a nursing program and switching to a liberal arts degree to do allied health is a stupid consolation prize.

[bio-nonymous]

In the article is quoted, "CNN report captured the irony of our current situation: "There's an acute nursing shortage in the United States, but schools are turning away thousands of qualified applicants as they struggle to expand class size and hire more teachers for nursing programs." The reality on the ground as I understand, is that there are not enough qualified people to teach nursing, as there are likely fewer Nursing PhDs churned out every year for the number of openings--if you want a job that might guarantee employment in academia, a nursing PhD will maybe fit the bill. This also contributes highly to the amount of nurses being produced, because class sizes (# of students in the room, especially lab and upper division) can only be so big and must meet accrediting standards of excellence.

Also, the author states that PT is a viable alternative to being a nurse. First of all, PTs are now Doctors of Physical Therapy and require a bachelor's degree and then a 3 year graduate program with a research component. The good programs are also pretty difficult to get into and require a large investment in shadowing and volunteering before you are eligible to apply, as well as stellar GPAs in undergrad--> similar to med school. It is almost like saying, "Well if you can't get into undergrad nursing school, there's always Med School as a back-up option plan B!"

However, getting a degree in biology for example, and then getting an MSN afterwards is a fast track to a good job, with potential for advancement to administration. So if you want to be a nurse, or decide to become one at some point in undergrad, there is a very viable alternative to a BSN program. Not all places offer Master's in Nursing, but for those that do, I would assume the barrier to entry in terms of credentials in likely high because of competition for a limited number of slots. Though at that point if someone is qualified, a PA or NP program might be more satisfying? I have no idea how the qualifications needed for PA and for MSN admissions stack up.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm not sure what is so controversial unless Mintz is inaccurate when he catalogs the alternate career paths nursing students might take.

Let's try an example and see if that helps.

...

It is a failure not to get into a nursing program and switching to a liberal arts degree to do allied health is a stupid consolation prize.

Nope.  Still the same basic dynamic on the same simple premise.  Thank you for your explanation but it points out what we already know.

All this fella did was make a harmless suggestion----students can take it or leave it (and since few undergrads read IHE his opinion is moot as far as they are concerned) and profs and advisors can take it or leave it.

Lots of students don't get into the college or major that they want; the "consolation prize" is a fact in many areas of life, college and jobs not the least of those.  No one is disputing the numbers of people who are turned away from nursing programs.  Virtually all need a way to make a living somehow, and if they can't do it as nurses, why not try a consolation prize?----it's better than starving but not as good as being a Rock star.

Mintz simply suggests some self-serving alternatives.

There's no real controversy here, Polly, just that strange defensiveness of STEM professionals about their popular majors.

[marshwiggle]

There's no real controversy here, Polly, just that strange defensiveness of STEM professionals about their popular majors.

I stand to be corrected, but I can't recall STEM people on here suggesting recruiting people who can't get into other programs. Partly because of the math, which most people find hard, there's no point in presenting it as an alternative to students who don't have high enough grades for other things because they most likely will find STEM worse.

Trying to attract unprepared, unmotivated people to keep the numbers up only works if the standards are so low that they can sleepwalk through it.

[pgher]

Matt Reed's take, which I think many here will agree with.

[Hibush]

Matt Reed's take, which I think many here will agree with.

One of his points is that there is a shortage of faculty. The collective bargaining agreements at many Community Colleges require faculty pay to be equal across fields. That is obviously not reflecting the market reality. If you want to find and keep nursing professors, you have to pay what they would make in nursing or at a college with market-responsive salaries.

I suspect the CC faculty would not mind if their union negotiated the higher salary uniformly across the institution.

[polly_mer]

All this fella did was make a harmless suggestion----students can take it or leave it (and since few undergrads read IHE his opinion is moot as far as they are concerned) and profs and advisors can take it or leave it.

He made a crap suggestion based something that bears no resemblance to reality.

I wouldn't have even blinked if Mintz had flat out said something to the effect of: 

So you didn't get into nursing school and are looking for another major.  Have you considered history?  You'll spend four years <doing whatever a good pitch for history looks like> and then you'll go get a middle-class job.  What job?  Well, <several paragraphs of recent examples from students he knew>.

The problem is exactly that instead of recruiting for a good liberal arts education and a different, but good, path, the author gave crap advice about things he doesn't know and that don't work as he indicated.

It really is a matter of being a public moron about the alternatives instead of a STEM/humanities divide in this case.

[Wahoo Redux]

All this fella did was make a harmless suggestion----students can take it or leave it (and since few undergrads read IHE his opinion is moot as far as they are concerned) and profs and advisors can take it or leave it.

He made a crap suggestion based something that bears no resemblance to reality.

I wouldn't have even blinked if Mintz had flat out said something to the effect of: 

So you didn't get into nursing school and are looking for another major.  Have you considered history?  You'll spend four years <doing whatever a good pitch for history looks like> and then you'll go get a middle-class job.  What job?  Well, <several paragraphs of recent examples from students he knew>.

The problem is exactly that instead of recruiting for a good liberal arts education and a different, but good, path, the author gave crap advice about things he doesn't know and that don't work as he indicated.

It really is a matter of being a public moron about the alternatives instead of a STEM/humanities divide in this case.

Okay.  Thanks for your opinion.