Future of Nursing Recommendations - Reflection Paper

Future of Nursing Recommendations
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Recommendation 4: Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80% by 2020.
The nursing field is about to change for the better if the recommendations in the IOM are anything to go by. The report by the Institute Of Medicine titled the future of nursing gave out 8 recommendations that would be implemented in the states so as to revolutionize the health sector and certainly the nursing profession. Recommendation 4, proposes that there be an increase in the number nurses with the baccalaureate degree from the current 50% up to 80% by the year 2020 (Sherman, 2013). Back in the 60s there were similar efforts to revolutionize the nursing field, but that went downhill and never came up again. As such one can be rather skeptic about this proposal maturing either. One of the implications that will come out with the implementation is that most of the nurses that have taken associate degree will have to go back to school. As for the students that are taking the baccalaureate degrees, they are on the right path as they are going to be absorbed into the system much easily, due to the higher number of vacancies that will result from the percentage increase. As much as most of those that have the associate degrees may view this as a hindrance, I feel that is in a positive way going to add onto the skills level as an added advantage to the experience in the field.
Recommendation 5: Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020.
The current situation must have been the main reason as to why the Institute Of Medicine went ahead to produce this report with this recommendation in mind. Less than one percent of the nursing community has a doctorate degree. As such, it means that the demand for doctorate degree holding personnel is higher than the pipeline medical institutions can supply. For students at the undergraduate level, like us, it means that there is a lot of potential in t...