Nursing as a university subject

I am revisiting this post in 2011. Don't remember what I was going to say, and the link is broken:
http://www.mentalnurse.org.uk/index.php/2009/04/04/nursing-not-a-proper-university-subject/

I have mellowed about college after graduating. Two years ago, I have would have had a lot to say about whether the nursing curriculum properly fit into the liberal arts model.

Today, I would say it definitely does not, but "meh, who cares?"

After two years in the work force, I still fundamentally agree with Charles Murray's assessment that professions requiring board exams should not require school as a pre-requisite for taking the exams. Most of what I did not get out of school and learned on the job, I could never have gotten out of school. What I did get out of school, I could have acquired on my own through self-study. Allowing someone to sit for the board exams with an academic degree would not end nursing schools. The majority of nurses probably could not have gotten by with self-study, and a larger number would not want to. But letting the un-lettered sit for exams would require schools to focus on their value-added, probably improving them.