Caring is the heart of nursing. Most nurses have a quality about them that harbors caring. Caring is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “effort made to do something correctly, safely, or without causing damage,” or “things that are done to keep someone healthy, safe, etc.” Nurses, whether they are an associate degree educated or baccalaureate educated, want to do a good job. They don’t come to work to intentionally or unintentionally harm their patients. For example, Aiken, Clarke, Sloan, Lake, Cheney (2008) estimate that 40,000 patient deaths a year could be avoided with better staffing and higher educated nurses. Because of the looming nursing shortage and better patient outcomes for baccalaureate degree nurses, all nurses should be required to get their BSN.
