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American Journal of Critical Care. 2006;15: 126-127
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LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

To the Editors:

I am responding to your editorial "Doctor of Nursing Practice—MRI or Total Body Scan," (July 2005: 278–281). I totally agree with your views. Nursing does not need, nor will it benefit from, yet another alphabet soup of credentials that have no real meaning. Organized nursing fails to recognize that we are not a profession, but a vocational trade group. No entity or group where the greatest percentage of members have less than a professional degree is accepted as a profession. Nearly 65% of nurses still have only a diploma certificate or a junior college degree. In all other junior college programs, graduates are an assistant to the professional (eg, physical therapy assistant, dental assistant, computer science assistant). It is well known that nurses are the least educated healthcare provider today. As you correctly point out, all other disciplines have moved on to bachelor’s, master’s, or even doctorate degrees. Nurses have litttle to no credibility at the operational level.

I view this attempt of nursing to establish a doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) as another attempt to raise nursing from the top, rather than insist on moving the starting level to the bachelor of science in nursing. It certainly will fail because of the poorly educated entry level of this vocational trade group. In addition, the DNP will only cut yet another divide in nursing between the thousands of nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists who will eventually be "grandfathered" and portrayed as "less educated."

Christy Price Rabetoy
Salt Lake City, Utah





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