#nursing internship

Hello! My apologies for the really late response, but I hope this information helps! I’m currently in a BSN program so my answers may be a little biased but I know plenty of ADN-RN nurses!

While I’m not super well-versed in all the little details between the two different degrees, this is what I do know.

First off: You CAN take the NCLEX as an ADN (associates degree nurse). My preceptor at the internship I was just at was an RN after getting her associates degree and she’s been working for a little over 15 years. However, she is currently in school to get her BSN.

ADN is the minimum for nursing requirements, but takes shorter (2-3 years depending on the program)

If you are looking to get the basics out of the way and jump straight into the workforce because staying in school for a long time is not something you’d like, then an ADN works just fine! You get the basic nursing fundamental classes and some specialty classes (like pediatrics, behavioural health, basic pharmacology etc). However, being an ADN-RN means that you’re limited to just basic nursing care.

BSN opens up more options for better positions, different jobs, higher pay but takes longer (usually a 4 yr program at an institution)

The difference between the classes of ADN and BSN is that these go a little more in depth. While ADN gets the basics, they’re also a little more focused on care while BSN classes go deeper into more critical thinking concepts. 

For example if you see a patient is failing and their Oxygen percentage is going down, a first instinct is to give them oxygen. But critical thinking pushes you into delving deeper such as why is it going down, what could possibly be causing it, and what components of their entire health do you have to factor in that could be a reason as to their oxygen going down. It’s a lot of mental exercise, admittedly!

However, it does take longer and you have to take pre-requisite classes at the school beforehand and more often than not, take an entrance test as on top of a review of your pre-req grades to get into the program.

A lot of people with ADN’s ive noticed are getting their BSN. 

If you end up decided to get your ADN for now, just know that that’s not the end! There are plenty of RN to BSN programs at multiple schools where people that are already RN’s are choosing to get BSN certified in it. So if that’s something you’d think you’re interested in further down the road, just know it’s a possibility!

BSN opens up the doors to being: nurse educators, clinical instructors, nurse managers, specialty nurses (specific age group, disorders, critical care, neonatology, etc), and is the first step in going onto be an Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) where you can be a Nurse Practitioner, Nurse Anesthetist, Nurse Midwise, and even higher roles in administration. Also, higher pay.

Ultimately:

I personally will advocate to get your BSN, because even though it takes a little bit longer than an ADN, it’s better to get it out of the way now and it opens up plenty of opportunities right at the start of your career. BUT! If your life situation makes that difficult and ADN is your choice of path, you’ll still definitely be able to take the NCLEX and still be a Registered nurse. In many cases, ADN-RNs are great nurses and unless you’re looking up new jobs, if you’re good at what you do, no one cares how you got the degree. (I didn’t know my preceptor was an ADN but even with that knowledge, she was still the best one I had!) 

That seemed like a minor thing when I was actually working, but overall it’s the worst thing because it’s just so sexist. It’s like someone thought: “Hmm, what color are we going to assign to students and interns? Sooo many colors are already taken, but there’s still yellow or light green... or pink!” 

“Clearly, pink is the best, but we can’t possibly make boys wear pink. Imagine the horror, none of them would want to apply here anymore if we were that cruel. Let’s make an exception for 50 % of humans by giving them a white shirt with a slightly different cut than the nurses’ shirts.”

Well, admittedly there are less men in nursing than women, but I’ve counted 11 female interns/students including myself in my two months and 7 males, so the difference is less than one might think and in my opinion not big enough to warrant that exception.

It wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t mean the male interns are usually perceived as more competent and experienced than the female ones. The patients don’t know anything about the hospital uniforms and get confused by the different colors anyway, and most of them don’t bother to read the nametags. The most extreme example: At the beginning of my first internship there was another intern, 15 years old, about two weeks more experience than me. I don’t actually remember what I was supposed to help a patient with, but I know I was unpleasantly surprised when he told me to “better wait for the actually trained orderly” in a vaguely dismissive tone, pointing to the 15-year-old kid. 

That was the most memorable occasion, but even when the patients know that male interns/students are dressed in white, they still instinctively seem to treat them like they’re more important and competent. And of course, the one time I tried to bring that up (in a really polite “I’m-not-actually-complaining”-tone), I was told it’s not sexist at all, how did I even get such an idea, why do I even care about the shirt colors, no one else has ever mentioned it. Well who would, most of the people whom this concerns for longer than a month are nursing students who partially depend on the opinion of most other staff members to get good marks, the lack of which might mean no job offer later on, and if someone develops a dislike for them, their practical education could suck for the foreseeable future. Of course they’re not going to risk complaining too much about anything that isn’t life-threatening.