In considering level of education and how that qualifies someone to be a professional I would like to make two points: North Dakota requires a BSN to sit for RN boards. The rationale is that if nurses are to be considered health care professionals they should have a professional degree. I am not sure if this is the same reasoning in college and university nursing programs outside of ND. Can one tell the difference in a diploma vs bachelor prepared RN? First I was a breastfeeding mother, then a LLLL, next an IBCLC and then went to college. Even though I had been a LLLL for 10 years when I took the board the new LC credentials did not increase my status with the medical community or with mothers. At that time LCs were very new (I sat the board in 1986) but even now I believe that it is Linda the nurse calling from Custer Health that usually opens HCPs ears and minds, not Linda the IBCLC calling from her home based practice. Does this mean I think one needs to be a degreed professional to be an IBCLC? Not in ability to help mothers and babies, but to be able to intervene on their behalf, in our community, probably. I still believe the best training I had was nursing 5 children (29 to 18 years old) with the myriad differences they brought; not necessarily because I personally nursed but because I spent time learning what needed to be learned to be able to nurse them - none of them crawled up after birth, latched and nursed happily ever after. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html