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Competencies of Associate and Baccalaureate Nursing Education

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Competencies of Associate and Baccalaureate Nursing Education
Jessica Key
Grand Canyon University: NRS-430V
August 16, 2014

Competencies of Associate and Baccalaureate Nursing Education
The differences in competencies between associate-degree nurses and baccalaureate-degree nurses can be looked at many different ways. These can include statistics, patient experiences and correlating hospital scores or by evidence based articles researching the differences in how the diverse education levels handle certain situations (for example, cardiac arrests, a difficult patient situation, death, etc). To understand each degree level, we must first understand exactly what they do to prepare nurses to enter this profession. This paper will look deeply into where the associate and baccalaureate degrees came from and exactly what they concentrate on while a student is in the program.
What is Nursing?
According to the American Nurses Association, nursing can be defined as “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” ("American Nurses Association," 2014, section 3). To acquire the label of “Registered Nurse”, one must go through one or more nursing programs to attain the knowledge to take the standardized licensure exam. The two most common programs are associate-level degree and baccalaureate-degree level programs.
Associate-degree programs (ADN) consist of 2 years (4 semesters or “blocks”) of study usually in a community college setting. In 1951, Mildred Montag pioneered an abbreviated program for students that taught them the necessary knowledge and skills to pass the licensure exam but instead of studying for 3 to 4 years, they could accomplish

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