The Importance of Higher Education in Nursing

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The Importance of Higher Education in Nursing Kristy Snyder
Grand Canyon University: NRS 430V
July 6, 2014

Nursing, like many professions, requires formal training and education, but it is the level of education in the nursing profession that sets on exceptional nurse apart from others. Safer patient outcomes and reduction in patient mortality and secondary insults of illness has decreased with an increase of staffing Baccalaureate Degree in Nursing (BSN) nurses over a staff consisting mainly of Associate’s Degree in Nursing (ADN) nurses. This paper focuses on the educational differences and competencies between nurses with an ADN and BSN respectively and the experience and skill sets that form the clinical decisions made by these nurses and how their decisions affect patient care and outcome.
Mildred Montage was a nurse educator in the 1950’s and was the leading advocate and creator of the ADN in reaction to the stark shortage of nurses in the years preceding World War II (Creasia & Friberg, 2011, p.14-15). This degree was designed to decrease the shortage of nurses and the adequate level of clinical nursing skills and successful pass rate of graduates on the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) were all taken into accountability for measuring the success of the ADN programs. An associate degree nurse is defined as a nurse attending a community college, up to three years but no less than two years, with training in clinical skills. A nurse graduating from a community college nursing program gains an ADN and is then qualified to sit for the NCLEX to obtain licensure as a Registered Nurse (RN) (ANA, 2014)
A baccalaureate degree nurse is defined as a nurse attending a university or state college for a up to five years but no less than four years, with the same courses and training as an ADN program, in addition the BSN program trains on the
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