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Many people currently in allied health jobs worry that state standards will now require more and more academic credentials. The more credentials are required, the more difficult it is to enter the field, especially since academic degrees are expensive to obtain.
According to an article by Ellie Ashford in Community College Times:
If attempts to require nurses and respiratory therapists to have a bachelor’s degree succeed, community college leaders are concerned that “degree creep” will hit other areas in the health professions.
Similar discussions are under way for nuclear medicine technology professionals, radiographers, dental hygienists and dieticians. Degree creep—mandating higher degrees than are needed to perform a job—is happening at the upper levels, too. In the past, physical therapists needed a bachelor’s degree to practice; today, they need a doctorate.
A better educated workforce seems to make some degree of sense. The problem, however, is that no one really knows if this education, which students pay for themselves, really matters at all. There’s virtually no evidence that bachelor’s degrees in nursing and respiratory care, or doctorates in physical therapy, improve care at all.
Evidence suggests that health professionals with bachelor’s degrees do no better than associate degree holders on licensing exams. They’re also no better at the job later on, once they’re hired for the same position. So what’s the point of all this?
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Nancy Green on August 19, 2011 3:54 PM:
I would fact-check that about physical therapists. They don't make a lot of money, and I don't think they have the means to rack up the college debt from a doctoral degree.
Patrick Garcialuna on August 20, 2011 1:46 AM:
Though I can see the obvious downside for students when it comes to expenses, I think that this "degree creep" could be a good thing. Personally I would want someone like a doctor, or anyone from the afore mentioned professions, to be as highly educated as possible before administering care for me. I will acknowledge that a higher degree does not always mean that that person is a better anything, but it gives me comfort knowing that the person working on me knows just that much more. So I would say this could be an overall plus to make a long story short.
Laurence Stevens on August 20, 2011 10:39 PM:
Doctorates in physical therapy are granted by programs lasting about 3 years
Steve on August 21, 2011 11:31 AM:
So what’s the point of all this?
To restrict the number of entries into the field and keep wages up.
Next question?
Brian Beaver on August 21, 2011 3:03 PM:
Um, this isn't education. This is training, and I see no need to increase costs in the health care system in this manner. Education is the development of the human being. Training is technical and involves learning about career enhancement and increasing economic capability, and running up of student loans is not the way to go.
Bonnie L. McLellan on August 23, 2011 3:26 PM:
I'm on old and crotechty ICU nurse. I have a bachelors degree in nursing I can't fathom doing what I do on a daily basis without at least that background. You don't need a bachelor's degree in political science to write for a political blog, do you? You need to be able to read. Spell check will do the rest.
What they told me in nursing school was that the point of increasing education requirements in nursing is to increase professional control of nursing. When nurses don't understand the science or the metrics of the profession, they are subject to the whims of those who do.
A good example of this is in the article itself. "Evidence suggests that health professionals with bachelor�s degrees do no better than associate degree holders on licensing exams. They�re also no better at the job later on, once they�re hired for the same position." I'd get laughed out of the ICU with that. What evidence? What source? Passing the nursing boards indicates that you are a safe beginning practitioner, nothing more. Practitioners in the field should be able to determine what the minimum standards are. And they should determine standards for adequate practice of the profession.
And as far as restricting entrance to restrict wages, that's a practice as old as the guilds of the Middle Ages. See- an understanding of history helps me here.
Tom Massey on August 24, 2011 12:34 AM:
Education VS Experence: Experience is 100X more important than education. Technicians with oversight from doctors should be performing heart surgery. Manual dexterity is more important than knowledge of chemistry. The regulations are setup to MAXIMIZE WAGES for existing doctors (and lawyers, etc.)
HenryEdward on August 24, 2011 12:28 PM:
"Technicians with oversight from doctors should be performing heart surgery." They are, and then they become doctors supervising technicians - this is how medicine works. Allied health fields do not have the same system for the most part. In some fields the standards creep makes sense and is important - i.e., nursing. In others it is a billing and practice revenue issue - i.e., physical therapy.
Orwin O'Dowd on August 28, 2011 4:31 PM:
Bonnie and Steve on restrictive practices are speaking to a point that really worried Adam Smith. He thought it through, the good man, and concluded that those with the power to restrict were raking profit in urban property! Inevitably the bubble in higher education now collapses on a property slump!
The hard part is that post-graduate students serve as low-paid researchers, supposedly advancing the field, with gains in quality and productivity. Its said that youth is invaluable in the creative work of research, but that's at the expense of enthusiasm and new ideas in the service organizations and of clinical experience in research! Bonnie's onto something pretty grim: universities easily get like feudal hierarchies treating students as vassals!
haute-savoie on December 10, 2011 9:51 AM:
This post could not be more on the level...