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It happens rather often that people considering getting a degree in nursing found themselves rather confused about what nursing degree would be perfect for their career plans in health-care industry. Basically, the potential nursing specialists are offered two choices: they could begin with the Associates Degree in Nursing (ADN), upon which they will be entitled to become the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), if such are their career ambitions. ADN requires, as a rule, two years to be completed, while BSN will take another two extra years to graduate, all in all – four years to become a fully-fledged Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The designation that a student will get in both cases is the same – it is RN, or the Registered Nurse. Still, despite the same RN designation, there are some critical differences between the former and the latter. The decision-making in this case will depend on such factors as financial issues, the period of time required to complete the degree training course as well as the ultimate career aims and objectives, which a person is determined to pursue. From the point of view of the major differences between these most common nursing degrees the length of time needed to complete either AND or BSN program happens to be one of the most critical. You should agree that there is a significant difference between two years, required for getting a typical ADN degree and four years you will need to spend on the BSN. Also you should take into consideration different number of academic credits to be obtained as well as the extra time one needs to spend on finishing all the prerequisites required to be eligible for a BSN program enrollment. Surely, there is a possibility to take up an accelerated BSN program and cover the training in 18 to 21 months, but such an option is accessible only for individuals who have already obtained some kind of Bachelor's degree (BAs) from an ACCREDITED training facility and in this way practically complete all the necessary requirements to get their BSN. By the way, despite the expectations of the nursing degree training instructors and employment market experts, which previously predicted the gradual extermination of the ADN, currently about some 66 percent of nursing graduates still give their preference to ADN or Associate of Science (AS) degrees. The popularity of ADN degree is rising despite the projections and expectations, and this can be explained by the hot demand for the associate degrees on the part of health care facilities, which are desperately in need of professional and well-trained personnel with a degree to provide for quality patient care. The four-year BSN programs, as it turned out, produce insufficient numbers of nurses and they are not capable of satisfying the needs of the health care industry. As the things look now the demand for two-year Associate degrees is expected to remain and even to grow in the short- and, probably, mid-term perspective. On the other hand, the training offered by BSN programs is superior in all respects to ADN training and RNs with their BSNs have proved to be more efficient in critical patient care decision-making when a senior specialist is absent, or when a nurse is required to question doctor’s instructions, because they might turn out to be totally wrong. A BSN program much better and more in-depth concentrates on developing critical thinking; it also includes comprehensive range of different nursing management skills. Nurses with a BSN have better competitive opportunities than ADNs to demonstrate such skills as patient assessment and disease pathophysiology, since they are much better trained in those respects. On the other hand an experience nurse with a BSN can easily obtain very promising and self-fulfilling employment positions, such as faculty teaching positions and high-level administrative jobs. As you can see, both types of nursing degrees, ADNs and BSNs could be used to initiate an appealing and rewarding life-long career in health care. The choice between them should rest on your careful assessment of your career ambitions and plans, so you could choose the program that would feet them as perfectly as possible. Well, both types of nursing degrees have their advantages and disadvantages in the respect to the career objectives of the potential nursing professionals. To summarize them: - ADN program is more advantages from the point of view of tuition costs. It takes twice less time to be completed. In this way a graduated student is in position to begin actual working and gaining precious experience twice as quickly as compared with a BSN graduate. - BSN program, despite being more costly in both time and financial senses, is much more advantageous from the point of view of the higher positions potential within the health care industry career hierarchy ladder. For instance, such positions as a nurse practitioner, a nurse midwife, or a nurse anesthetist, are much easier to be gained by a BSN holder than the other way around. Besides the traditional nursing degree training programs, offered by campus-based schools and colleges, the online degrees in nursing are widely available nowadays. In case you are dealing with an ACCREDITED program then you can rest assured that the quality of training is as high as the one of traditional colleges. Besides, the online training will cost you considerably less than a college-got degree. And the greatest advantage of the online degree program is the possibility to get a degree without damaging your everyday activities, like your job and family responsibilities, etc. In this way the online degrees have become the only feasible option to get a degree for people with jobs and/or families. masters degree in nursing
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