Question about nursing school?

Question

How long does it take to become an RN and is there prerequisites that have to be completed first? I'm going to school now to be a medical assistant. I have a 4.0 GPA and want to become a nurse while working as a medical assistant in a hospital.. thanks..

Answer 1

Madison,

Monkeyman has given very general advice considering there are over 500 nursing programs producing RNs in the US every year.

There are different requirement for every school, and there are no prerequisites that apply to all schools. He listed these prerequisites - Micro, A&P I & II, College Alg, Comp I, Diet Nutrition, medical term, etc... However, in my program diet and nutrition were not prerequsites nor was medicaterminology. As my school believed in teaching from a complete holistic model, diet and nutrition for each medical condition was part of the nursing curriculum, as was the medical terminology which applied to those conditions, and the medications thus we had no separate pharmacology course.

You have to look at where you want to go to school, and then meet the prerequisites for those programs. Some programs may require one or more courses different, but that only gives you a broader educational base.

Additionally, some programs prefer to admit students who have worked as Nursing Assistants or other positions, others have no such requirements.

The entrance requirements are very broad, as are the courses while in school. My wife and I both went to BSN programs and we took completely different prerequisites and completely different core nursing courses.

There are different programs available to become an RN. You can take the associate degree program (most of these do now require the prerequisites before applying) and take a total of 3 years to complete the process. The diploma programs are rare, but also have prerequisites and usually take 3 years after the prerequisites, and finally the bachelor of science in nursing from a college or university the prerequisites are built into the course plan, and the overall program takes 4 years.

You do not, as monkeyman suggested need to obtain the associate degree and RN licensure before the BSN. There are also bridge programs for ADNs to go into a masters degree program to become an advanced practice nurse. Incidentally, there are many forms of advanced practice nurse, a few of which use the ARNP credentials.

Answer 2

Absolutely. You need to have ALL pre reqs done before you can even apply (Micro, A&P I & II, College Alg, Comp I, Diet Nutrition, medical term, these are pre reqs for many nursing schools in Florida, it may differ in your state) It takes a minimum of 2 years to be an RN (one year for LPN) YOu can also get a BSN, then you can go on to become an ARNP.

Also, nursing school is very competitive, and a 4.0 GPA is definitely working in your favor. Remember, when you take your pre reqs, you will dramatically increase your chances of getting in FIRST if you get A's, esp. in micro and the A&P courses.

*US DR* is right, what i wrote only applies to some schools, pre reqs differ from school to school. And i corrected what i said that you can get an RN then go onto BSN, you can start a BSN program without having RN*