I teach nursing history. In the late 19th century during the early days of nursing education, the elderly Clara Barton, a heroine form the Civil War and the founder of the American Red Cross, lent her good name and prestige to a 12-week long nursing program. The graduates of that program wore the typical prim and proper starched uniforms and caps of the day, and received a nursing pin and diploma, which allowed them to go out and compete with the real nurses who were graduates of rigorous three-year programs at places like John Hopkins and Bellevue Hospital in New York. Even worse, in the 1910s, you could pay $30 an get a nursing degree from a correspondence nursing school based in Chicago.

Nurses spent decades working to set standards and gain accreditation for nursing education and to gain the trust and respect of the public by upholding those standards. I am appalled that so many persons now want to take all sorts of short cuts to a nursing degree. Have you ever noticed that there are no accelerated engineering or pharmacy degrees? Or that there is no fast and easy route to becoming an airline pilot? Why? Because we put our lives in these persons hands, just as we do nurses. Why then do people think there should be easy routes to nursing?
 

I am not saying that this should not go forward, but I want to know that these nurses can show proof that they have the same 400-500 hours of supervised clinical experience as RNs form ADN programs. Or, they should be required to document (with signed affidavits) that they have several years of experience.  Even then, it is not a sure thing to belie ve that all LPNs can safely transition to the RN role, or are capable of the higher level of critical thinkin it reuqires.  I know.  I was LPN for 15 years before going through and ADN, then  BSN program.  I did not get to skip over two years of clinical, and was better off because of that.

Today's patients are FAR sicker, with much more complex needs than those of 20 years ago.  If anything, learning to care for them requires more time and effort now, not less.