Lizzie, if you have your whole brain engaged and still spout this twaddle, I'm surprised you're allowed out on your own. You don't listen do you? Ever? To anyone? Here's the gist of the argument again, for the hard of thinking;
- Nurses themselves have asked for a degree to be the standard qualification for their profession.
- The profession has changed greatly, and a higher standard of education is required for effective working as a nurse.
- Nursing degrees are both practical and academic, with a great deal of hands on experience built into the curriculum.
- Experienced nurses with no degree will still be there, this only applies to new entrants to the profession.
- Your comment about 'all nurses were adequately trained within two years'. No they weren't. Any nurse will tell you that they continued to learn in service via extensive training courses throughout their careers. Many specialised; becoming a District Nurse required a further two years, a Health Visitor the same. Most theatre nurses took many years before they were considered fit to scrub in for operations as a single nurse with a surgeon.
- The amount of clinical knowledge in the field of nursing doubles about every three years. The logical conclusion of this is that you need to know more in order to practice effectively. Experienced nurses have some of this knowledge due to their continuous in-house training, new entrants do not. Still with me? New entrants therefore have a higher threshhold of knowledge to attain before they can practice effectively on qualifying. To help them meet the higher threshhold, they are being asked to study for longer, and at a higher level. This study results in the award of a Degree in Nursing.

Finally, a question; nurses study very hard to acquire the skills necessary to provide care. Why should this hard work not be recognised by the award of a recognised qualification? What do you have against nurses that means they should be different to doctors, or lawyers, or architects or teachers? Their studies are at the same level, they work just as hard to achieve the level of qualification, so why not award a degree?