I am sure this article, and I will try to keep it brief and not too inflammatory, could really upset some folks. But I make my statements following 39 years in my profession, with a lot of observation, experience, and education.
There is nursing education, and then there is nursing education. I happened to be an undergrad student in nursing at one of the leading universities  in the country in the 60s. We worked at being professionals, taking courses along with med students. We wanted to be the best of the best. And those that didn’t succumb to organic chemistry and anatomy and physiology persevered. Our class diminished from 300 to 99 over four grueling years! But as the years have gone by, I have observed the disintegration of this professional education.
In the state where I now reside, continuing professional education for nurses is not even required. How embarrassing to the profession. Just send in your 50 bucks each year. It wouldn’t take much science to figure out where I live. Not that it matters. My first position in this state was to spend 2 months teaching maternal and child health, because if I had not been hired that summer, the students would not have been able to graduate in the spring. This was an LPN to RN program. I had 12 students (4 men; 8 women). I tried so hard to motivate them to look toward higher education, to think about what opportunities they might have in their careers. But their sole motivation seemed to just make a few more dollars in the hospital. I found this most disappointing.
And maternal and child health? I was to follow a rigid curriculum and monitor clinical practice. The curriculum was labor and delivery, with clinicals in the hospital. No curricula about maternal health. No curricula about child growth and development.
In my work since then, I have met some young nurses who are truly enthusiastic, motivated, wanting to grow professionally, hopefully into a specialty. I would do anything to help them, even if all it means is a great letter of reference and a lot of support. It is of interest that they came from major universities, but not in this state.
I am still trying to make sense of this state that I have been living in for 3 years. Is it the education in this state? Is it the value system of this state? Or is it a more systemic problem that I have lost track of, despite my staying on top of professional literature. The political climate? At any rate, would you really, in good faith, encourage your child to study for the nursing profession? Is it even a “profession” anymore?
 Well here is my arm chair diatribe, and again, I would like to say, I have no intent of offending anyone, but I am very disappointed in most of my nursing colleagues. Which explains, to a degree, why I left 3 positions this year. I was embarrassed to work for colleagues that I could not respect.