Throughout the time that I sought for a nurse educator job, I had a rude awakening that my experience and the two national certifications I had, were not enough for me to get hired as a nurse educator. My bachelor degree in a non-nursing field did not help either. There was always one requirement that I did not meet: a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree!
Feelings About the Change
After five job interviews, I became fully aware that most hospitals have begun to heed the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) recommendation to raise the bar for the nursing profession, e.g., to increase the number of registered nurses with Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from 40% to 80% by the year 2020. Thus, the hospitals’ preference for BSN-prepared nurses, initially threw my world into a tailspin. I was unprepared for the change that I felt was forced upon me (NDC, 2007). Thereupon, the impact of the change dawned on me in stages, as illustrated by Whitney