Teaching Nurses

So I have this theory. A theory that has been cultivated and nursed through many years of watching my mother deal with these new nurses straight out of school who have their BSNs or RNs but have virtually no idea what they’re doing in an actual health care setting. It’s my understanding that a BSN is a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. That means (at least, at the University of Kansas) that a person is to go two years of undergrad and then two years of ‘nursing school’. I have a need to put apostrophes around that phrase because I find it to be sort of a joke. I understand that the nursing students go through a series of clinical, but that doesn’t prepare them for the actual workforce…dealing with administration and such.
Anyways…my theory…
I would like to conduct a study of sorts. I’d like to take two future nursing students (student A & student B) and put them in two different situations. Student A will go to a regular university program, do her two years of undergrad and two years of nursing school. Student B, however, will do ONE year of undergrad (most classes geared towards nursing) and then spend the next three years doing a sort of “residency”, shadowing a seasoned nurse and learning on the job. Then, after the four years, I’d like for them each to go work for a week with a completely new staff of nurses. They’d work different weeks, of course, a week each. And at the end of the two week period, have that staff evaluate the nurses and determine which one was more prepared, if either, for the work force.
Mind you, there are variations of this idea possible:
A) The full four years in the work force.
B) Two years undergrad, two years work force.
C) Three years undergrad, one year work force.
The nurses teaching would have to be certified – most likely through something like a six-week course in instruction – and would be paid more for taking on a student. The student would also be paid. It would resemble the residency program doctors must go through when they get out of medical school, making minimum (something like $15-$20/hr) and learning all the while.
But this program wouldn’t only benefit the people wanting to be nurses, but it would benefit the nurses who only have their diploma. They could skip the undergrad part and shadow a nurse for a year and a half or so, depending on their experience (determined by a placement test) and, upon evaluation, could receive their BSN without having to skip work for school and being able to make a living as well. Obviously, asking a registered nurse to go from making $30/hr to $15/hr is very unrealistic (due to the economy) so they’d be able to keep their own job and do the shadowing as well, as most of it would be shift work anyway. Three days a week at their job, three days a week at the training…mostly just schedule juggling for the person.
Just an idea. Any thoughts? Maybe I’m way off base…