"Pseudo-graduate profession".
^ This type of sneering really gets my goat. No one ever complained about Radiography, Physiotherapy, Othoptics and many other allied health professions becoming all graduate, yet for some reason nurses receiving a degree rather then a diploma, makes us uppity and deficient.
The work of nurses has changed hugely. Much of what nurses do now, used to be done by doctors. Before anyone chimes in, this role change is not because nurses are above themselves or doing basic care, but because patients are much sicker now and treatments are far more intense and technological.
Once upon a time, Dr's used to give I.V medication. Now nurses will have patients on a whole spectrum of IV meds, in a variety of routes, some of which require being scruubed to administer, it takes two nurses to prepare and administer the medication... can you see how this time consuming? I also presume you would quite like the nurse to know about the medication they give, rather then saying "Doctors do the prescribing, so I don't need to worry my little head about it".
What has not helped was getting rid of enrolled nurses and auxiliary nurses, who were actually trained in favour of health care assistants who may have hugely variable levels of training (if any) and are often taking on far more responsibility then they should, because they are viewed as cheap labour.
FYI there has always been an academic component to nurse training, just that the study used to take place in hospital, instead of university. So the idea that pre Project 2000 nurse training was 100% practical is a myth.