The general purpose of nursing programs and education is to produce nurses who have a professional grasp as well as the commitment that bolsters their participation in professional decisions and community-based activities (Aarabi, Cheraghi, & Ghiyasvandian, 2015). Indeed, these sentiments cannot be far from the truth apart from the fact that seems to be overlooked time and time again in the nursing education; the prerequisite classes. Even though some of these classes and courses such as Nutrition, Human Anatomy, Human Psychology, Microbiology-Lab, Oral Communication, among other courses core to nursing are essential, some are downright unnecessary. As Haws (2018) blatantly reports, nursing is similar to having a baby in terms of all the struggles to have it, but ultimately, one wonders why they conceived it in the first place. These sentiments can be said for the prerequisite classes and courses for nursing.
For instance, Haws (2018) justifies Statistics as a fundamental course on the rationale that it helps nurses look at data analytically and draw the necessary conclusions. However, this can be impugned by considering the actual work nurses do all day and the number of hours they spend doing the same. Indeed, a considerable part of the nursing schedule involves handling patients, catering to their needs, maintaining their psychological and emotional wellbeing among others, all of which rarely necessitates looking at any data that would require a statistics background.
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For a course considered by Mensik (2017) as the least educated discipline in the medical field, it constitutes a number of unnecessary prerequisites such as theology. While theology is indeed salient in fostering ethical behavior in nursing, some of the options such as ‘Exploring the Bible’ are farfetched towards the said objective above. The situation is further made excruciatingly tedious by the number of required hours for these needless courses and classes. For instance, one is required to complete six hours of Anthropology as well as six hours of Music, Theatre, Art, and Literature.
While it is a well- known fact that getting into nursing school is competitive, some of these prerequisites are merely a ploy for filtering the best students. As Barshay (2017) notes, some of these prerequisites have unintended consequences, especially if the student does not get admitted into nursing. Consequently, the student will have racked up courses that will not ultimately be relevant to their eventual majors.
References
Aarabi, A., Cheraghi, M. A., & Ghiyasvandian, S. (2015). Modification of nursing education for upgrading nurses’ participation: a thematic analysis. Global journal of health science , 7 (4), 161. Doi: 10.5539/gjhs.v7n4p161
Barshay, J. (2017). Wasted time and money on undergraduate classes. The Hechinger Report . Retrieved from https://hechingerreport.org/wasted-time-money-undergraduate-classes/
Haws, J. (2018). How hard is Nursing School . . . REALLY? NRSNG. Retrieved from https://www.nrsng.com/how-hard-is-nursing-school/
Mensik, J. (2017). New York governor signs BSN in 10 into law for nurses. OnCourse Learning Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.nurse.com/blog/2017/12/20/new-york-governor-signs-bsn-in-10-into-law-for-nurses/
