Much as I enjoy your magazine, I must take issue with an implication in the “Mother Knows Best” article from Johns Hopkins Nursing [Summer 2015]. As my husband read this article, he looked up and said, “I thought you have a BSN from Hopkins.”
While I understand the article was referring to Hopkins’ finally establishing a university-based degree program in 1983, the wording does seem to imply that no BSNs were awarded before 1986. In 1963, when I received my BSN from Hopkins, Duke and Vanderbilt both offered four-year degree programs, and I was accepted at both. However, I chose the longer five-year route at Hopkins because, I thought then and continue to believe, it offered superior fundamentals of nursing. And, I was not alone. Several other students received their BSNs at the same time I did—as did a number of students from the years preceding and following our graduation.
Perhaps, in future articles, some acknowledgement can be made that while Hopkins finally instituted a degree-only program in 1983, many BSNs were awarded by Hopkins prior to that time.
Thank you,
Jan McGehee Ma’luf, BSN ’63
