Nursing And ADN Differences

Running head: ADN AND BSN DIFFERENCES

ADN AND BSN DIFFERENCES

GCU
NRS-430V Professional Dynamics 26-Mar-2012 (O191)
NRS-430V

April 07, 2012

ADA AND BSN DIFFERENCES
Nursing has come a long way from the medieval age of scrutiny and disguise to being a well sought out profession. Nursing helps to provide humane services to the people and community. Education in nursing has different levels, an associate’s degree, a baccalaureate degree, master’s degree and many more. In this paper difference between Associates degree in Nursing (ADN) verses Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing (BSN) would be discussed.
Becoming a Registered Nurse (RN) can be done by three different ways. First is a 3 year diploma program mainly
administered within the hospitals, secondly is a 2year associate degree that is offered at community colleges, last but not the least is a 4-year baccalaureate degree given at different universities. So it is very important to able to understand the definition of different nursing degrees, as each degree has its own criteria’s for educational purposes.
Associate degree programs train nurses for immediate care areas. The program can be completed in less time i.e. in about 2 years and less number of credits is needed. The associate degree is entry level program and it is the minimum needed qualification to become a Registered Nurse. The Associate Degree Program came into action during World War II, because there was a huge shortage of nursing workforce. For the long time the associate degree program has been more appealing to the people is because it takes less time to complete and cost less for the program.

The Baccalaureate nursing program is designed to prepare students for work within the growing and changing health-care environment. With nurses taking more of an active role in all facets of healthcare, they are expected to develop critical thinking and communication skills in addition to receiving standard nurse training in clinics and hospitals. (AACN.NCHE.edu,n.d.) More and more clinical settings as hospitals prefer BSN nurses than the ADN, because they can provide more clinical based practices as they have more experience in conducting scholarly research, also the theoretical knowledge are more imparted and this degree is well recognized all over the country. To be honest everybody knows the course is time consuming and expensive at the same time, but keeping up with the modern technology and focus turning on nurses to provide community well-being and education, it becomes more necessary to be hand in hand with the change.
And the Change does come with benefit as a Baccalaureate nursing programs gives the opportunity to the person to look into higher prospective jobs, such as management positions in hospitals and universities, to provide managerial needs to the staff underneath. If a person wants to further his studies then BSN degree is the program to look into. The major difference between the BSN and ADN is, BSN nurses have more in depth knowledge of the history of nursing and conduct research in the community which is up to date.
This invariably helps to provide specific guidelines to the upcoming nurses an helps to achieve evidence based practice. In the study that had made public in May 2008 issue of Journal of Nursing Administration, Dr. Linda Aiken and her colleagues confirmed the findings from their landmark 2003 study found that every 10% increase in the proposition of BSN nurses on the hospital was associated with a 4% decrease in the risk of death.
(AACN.NCHE.edu,n.d.) The BSN profession is not just to give technical skills, but it also has a leadership and managerial skills, and that helps the BSN nurse to take managerial and leadership positions.
(Moorhead&Cowen, 2006). The American Association of colleges of nursing has posted (Fact sheet, 2010) on their sites enforcing to have the minimum level of entry for nurses should be a Baccalaureate degree. And with this requirement it’s going to increase more qualified nurses with advanced degree to be able to work in acute settings. With more knowledge to back up their roles in clinical areas, the nurse will be at par with physician and other healthcare professionals.
Patient Care Scenario During one of the working days in a post op surgical unit, one of the patients fell while he was walking around the unit. With the help of a co-worker who is a BSN nurse, the situation was managed who with her critical thinking understood what had to be done to recover the patient. The patient got transferred to higher level of care and made the condition of the patient stable. If it was not the presence of BSN nurse on the duty, it would have been difficult to analyze the situation and act quickly to save the patient.
Conclusion Nurse is the core of healthcare today, she is the center point that connects to all the other healthcare departments focusing on the patient, being the advocate that the patient needs, the research conductor that helps to bring evidence based practice, and the critical thinker who brings in the best practice and motivates other personnel around them to do their best which brings safest possible environment for the patient and community. This paper has discussed the differences in competencies between nurses prepared at the associate-degree level versus the baccalaureate-degree level in nursing.

References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing “fact sheet”.(2012). From http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-workforce
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2012).Retrieved April 8, 2012 From http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/impact-of-education
Moorhead, S., & Cowen, S.P. (2006). Current issues in nursing (7th ed.). : Elsevier Health Sciences Publishers.