by L R
(GA)
I am against the change to turn nurse anesthetist program into a doctorate program. That is not to say that I am against the educational advancement. Nor can I say with a clear conscience that there is no value in it. But there is a philosophy called the seven generation sustainability which is a concept that promotes forward thinking to the degree of seven generations. I believe that by having the program outright REPLACE the bachelor’s in terms of employment deincentivizes going to school for the program and for NPs in general.
A large part of the lure of nursing school is to receive a decent scope of practice for an efficient amount of education. If the nurse practitioner’s program is hanged to a doctorate program we will certainly face a shortage of nurses in the same way we do doctors. It has been said time and other nurse practitioners have proven that with their education they could provide as much if not more patient satisfaction than their physician counterparts.
The program as it is works, we shouldn’t take away from it but instead, we should continue to streamline it. This change doesn’t benefit the generations forthcoming. It is only to the benefit of the colleges that make more money at the expense of it’s students. Plenty of people will pursue a doctorate degree of their own volition. Never in history has it been a good idea to force these changes on people. We only have one chance to get this right because once the new system is integrated it will be hard to get rid of.
In closing, I am all for an opportunity to better yourself. But I don’t believe that the new system should make the old system irrelevent. Doctorate level nursing should carve its own niche in the field. The ability to find a job at each stage of the education process is one of the best things about the nursing field.