NURSING

Nursing

Nursing

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to understand the differences in the competencies between the nurses prepared at the associate degree level and nurses prepared at the baccalaureate degree level. A patient care situation is analyzed and to describe how nursing care would differ based upon formal educational preparation in nursing.

Discussion

Professionalism is an aspect for the success of any person. The more professional a person, the more successful he is. A higher level degree provides a person experience and knowledge. In any profession, a person having the advanced degrees has the highest skills and expertise than one, who have a lower level degree. Same, is the case in nursing, a nurse with an advanced degree in nursing would be considered more professional and competent than a nurse having a low level degree.

In this paper, we discuss the differences between the competencies of nurses registered with Associate degrees in Nursing (AND) and the nurses with baccalaureate degrees in nursing (BSN). Duration of a baccalaureate degree in nursing is four years, and it is obtained from a traditional college and university, whereas, associate degree is obtained from some community or junior college in a two years period. Baccalaureate degree is mainly the bachelors in nursing, whereas, associate degree in nursing is the degree in subject of applied science. In both the degrees, students get prepared for the National Council Licensure Exam; this exam is a requirement for the registered nurses. This program gives the license to the nurses, and through this, they can start working in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics and other health care facilities.

In general, it can be said that nurses with the associate degree are more professional because associate degree focus more on the technical training. On the other hand, nurses with a baccalaureate degree are not that much technical, because the main focus of this degree is on the general issues like the leadership, nursing theories and training.

A nurse, having the baccalaureate degree gets the jobs in management and administrative positions, whereas, nurses with AND gets the jobs in the technical work.

Unlike the nurses with an associate degree nursing program, baccalaureate degree nurses provide their expertise in health care setting - mental health, outpatient care and public health. A nurse with BSN degree is more competent to deliver her services in private homes, neighborhood clinic and outpatient centers. In such areas, demand for these nurses is continuously increasing because the focus of hospitals is more on acute care and health care.

A BSN nurse is more competent in leadership, nursing, clinical, scientific, and humanistic and decision making skills. Her tasks also include training and preparation of community health, patient education and nursing management. Skills that a BSN nurse possesses are very essential for the professional nurse of recent times, because it helps her in taking the abrupt decision. These decisions are life-and-death decisions, also decisions for designing and implementing plans for nursing care, ways of understanding the patient's treatment, symptoms and danger ...