I'm in my last year of school to become a nurse practitioner. I'm currently doing clinical hours at an Urgent Care clinic. I had an interesting conversation with the doctor/owner. He started out telling me about all the experience and schooling he's had: internal medicine, ICU rotations, emergency medicine, pharmacy internships, etc. Then he started talking about how he's been an opponent of nurse practitioners and their increased independence practicing medicine. Then he back-tracked and said that he doesn't mind the couple of nurse practitioners that work for him because they do a good job.
Don't get me wrong. This doctor is very knowledgable. His experience helps him to investigate and treat patients that completely stump me (It's not hard to stump me at the moment).
This doctor also spends much of his day treating ear infections, sinusitis, strep throat, and UTIs. A man with 16 years of schooling and countless hours of hospital experience is spending his time fixing sniffles, and he expects to get paid very well for his services.
Nurse practitioners can do what he does. He would say that they can't do it as well, but he leaves the clinic in their care without a doctor on site to review their work.
Doctors can throw tantrums all they want about "unprepared" nurse practitioners infringing on their turf, but the fact is that they've already given up their turf. Doctors aren't going into family practice because there isn't as much money in it. With 12 years of school they shouldn't. They should specialize. They should see the patients that stump the nurse practitioners. There will still be plenty of them.
Study after study has shown that NPs provide medical care just effectively, and sometimes more effectively than PCPs. It's because they can afford to take the time to do it. Doctors ahve those $400,000 salaries to maintain. They can't waste time listening to patients. There's another patient with a copay in waiting room.
We're going taking your jobs, docs. Not because we have more knowledge or more experience, but because you don't want your job anymore.
