*sigh*

Where to start. Last week, I was getting all my ducks in a row for future nursing school endeavours. I hit a couple of brick walls. First off, the accelerated nursing program at the University of Washington only offers a masters or a doctorate...which I knew. There is no option for a BSN only. Because I don't want to spend the next several years in school, the BSN option would be better for me but given that they only have a Masters or Doctorate accelerated program, that is my only option at this point. So the Masters option is less schooling so naturally I originally went in this direction. After further research, the Masters focal areas are not what I want to be doing. After speaking with a couple of nurses and talking to the UofW school of nursing program director (who is also a nurse) it turns out that all the focal areas in the Master's program are nurse educator roles. Although I like teaching, I don't think that is the direction I want to go. I dont want to spend time in school for something I don't want to be doing (I've learned that lesson...the hard way!) Next up...getting a doctorate (yikes!). Now this is a pretty new thing in the nursing world. Basically by 2015 it is going to be required that all advanced practice nurses have a doctorate (other than ones that already have it...they will be grandfathered in.) Well the University of Washington is preparing for this and offering all practitioner degrees at the doctorate level only. The bad news, the schooling is long. At the end of the day you might as well have gone to medical school. To make matters worse the Doctor of Nursing degree is very new and very controversial. Some people think it is a way for schools to make another dollar, some claim it is going to hinder the relationship between doctors and nurses, some think it is going to cause public confusion having a nurse that is a doctor (I can see that). On the other end, people think the extra education will produce better prepared nurses and it will bridge the gap between research and clincal practice. Ugh...what to do? The scope and pay of advanced practice nurses has not changed, just the amount of education. The extra classes that you get in a doctorate program are things like "leadership, and research theory." I'm sure there are more clinical hours too, but I think I would be better off getting experience working full time as a nurse. I don't think more theory and leadership classes are going to make me a better nurse. Sounds like the university is doing this in the name of the all so mighty dollar. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. In the meantime I had to decide if I was just going to throw this whole thing out the window or go forth with my pre-reqs that started Monday. Well, I couldn't bring myself to throw it all out just yet so I started my first class. I really like it, in fact, I look forward to studying. Wednesday I hit yet another hurdle however. The O-Chem class that I need is only offered at the local community colleges in the fall and they want Chem 1, Chem 2, and Chem 3 for pre-reqs and the professor did not approve a waiver for me (since I only have Chem 1). Great. I did some research and found a couple of online courses that might be options. I'll just say this. Chem 1, Chem 2, and Chem 3 have no business being pre-reqs for O-Chem. From a material standpoint, they are two separate entities. When asking the professor why I needed all these chem classes...I was told, "It is not a class content pre-req as much as it is a way to prove that students can handle the academic intensity of O-Chem" Hmm...I think (could be wrong) but getting an engineering degree just might be proof that I can handle the "academic intensity" of O-Chem. Just a guess though. In fact my sister (who is also a mechanical engineer) took O-chem and she said it was her easiest science course she took. It is frusturating but I really want this to work out. They wonder why they have a nursing shortage? Well, I now know why.