An Interpretive Phenomenological Study on the Influences on Associate Degree Prepared Nurses to Return to School to Earn a Higher Degree in Nursing

The call for a better educated nursing workforce has been growing stronger, coinciding with a concern for patient safety. Currently, about 80% of associate degree (A.D.) prepared nurses do not return to school for a higher degree in nursing. Few have studied this phenomenon. This interpretive phenomenological study sought to determine influences on A.D. nurses who had been in practice at least 10 years to return to school. 22 participants were interviewed over 1-1.5 hours from 3 hospitals in an urban setting in California. High levels of job satisfaction at the bedside received from being able to make a difference in the patient's lives, provisions for life long learning satiety without returning to school, lack of distinctions between nurses with higher degrees at the bedside and lack of perception of how a higher degree will change current nursing practice served as disincentives for nurses to return to school. Implications call for collaboration between service health care organizations and academia to provide more relevant education in the hospital setting for credit towards a higher academic degree. Collaborative education consortiums need to be formed to capture students completing their A.D. program who can seamlessly continue for a baccalaureate in nursing degree and masters in nursing

The Leadership Fusion Factor: Academic/Service Partnerships in Action

In talks and media presentations, Dr. Donna Shalala has said that, if fully implemented, the findings and recommendations noted in the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health” could signal nursing's ‘golden age.’ 1 The age would be golden because nursing has the human resources and intellectual capacity to meet emerging demands on the healthcare system, an orientation to patient-centered advocacy stretching from acute to community-based care, and the level of engagement to radically span the gaps in healthcare delivery that fragment the array of services Americans consider as their healthcare system. Shalala intentionally adds that leadership is the single critical factor in unleashing the full appreciation for what nursing will bring to health reformation and serve the public