The idea that nursing is a vocation probably stems from when nurses were nuns; devoting themselves to god and the care of others.
Nowadays that is outdated and unrealistic. Yes you have to be a certain type of person to be a nurse - qualities that aren’t always quantified in a degree - but you also have to acknowledge that nurses don’t do it for the love of god and humankind but also as a job to pay the bills. They certainly don’t do it for the money!
And those that think nurses don’t need degrees, or maths skills, or any amount of critical thinking or evaluation are stuck in the 1950s. Nursing in the 21st century is totally different to nursing 20/30/40/50 years ago. (I know, I’ve been doing it for 30 years…)
And in response to the PP who said “well people are the same, people have the same diseases, people need the same care” (to paraphrase) errr no they aren’t and no they don’t. The population is older, sicker, fatter, unhealthier, more complex medically, they have different expectations and experiences.
Technology has changed, medications are seemingly limitless, surgical procedures have changed, hospital inpatient stays are minimal, people are discharged earlier and with more complex comorbidities. Community care is extensive, mental health issues are more pronounces, more common and less likely be managed in secondary or tertiary care.
Nurses need to keep up to date with all the changes and developments as well as doing their day jobs. They need to complete mandatory training on an ever-increasing basis due to a risk averse (mostly rightly so) and litigation averse management system. They work unsustainable shifts and unpopular areas are haemorrhaging staff. This has a ripple effect as these areas become staffed by agency or bank staff who don’t always know what they’re doing, so they become more unsafe and harder to recruit to.
Retention is a massive problem, management need to focus on this rather than recruitment, and even pay. Make nursing appealing again - look at shift patterns, parking and transport, enforce breaks, training opportunities, target areas with a bullying problem. There’s so much that could be done but changing the initial training and dumbing down the role isn’t one of them.