Love this website. Long time reader, but just signed up recently to post.
I wanted to get some feedback on something that's been disturbing me recently in our field.
This is something that I've been reading on this website frequently as well.
This is the push by nursing leadership and some NP's for more independence for NPs and having NPs be independent medical providers.
I wanted to get other NP's view on a couple of my viewpoints so I can see if anybody else has my viewpoint or if I am the only one who has my viewpoints (which I usually feel like).
The first is a concern I have with this movement.
I personally believe NP's are shooting themselves in the foot with this movement for independence because each time NP's want independence and make statements like the following...
(made by an NP of an NP group practice in NYC on 60 minutes) "we can do anything that doctors do"
it is providing ammunition for groups like the AMA to go to elected officials and say that NPs are practicing medicine without a license and also without all of the knowledge and training a physician gets from medical school.
By force of the state, NP's will then go under state medical boards since lawmakers are convinced they are practicing medicine and not nursing (which we are, let's be honest, prescribing meds and ongoing medical management of disease is medicine, not nursing), and once we are under the control of state medical boards, our practice rights and scope of practice will decrease.
Anybody share this "back fire" concern with me?
I personally would never go to an NP who is independent from a physician for the line of reasoning dealing with my next question...
Also, another viewpoint that concerns me is the genuine belief by some NP's as evidenced by the quote above and some posts here on this board that NP's are equal to doctors and really "can do anything" doctors do.
I'm an NP (pediatric as the name implies) and my brother (a doc) is finishing his 2nd year of pediatrics residency (what can I say, my family loves kids:) )
And I can confidently say, we are NOT doctors and do not have anywhere near the in depth medical knowledge and training that doctors have.
Our pathophysiology, pharmacology, pathology, physiology, and so on is a drop in the bucket compared to what my brother got in medical school.
And then on top of 4 years of medical school, he has 3 years residency working 80 hours per week due to work hour restrictions on residents.
I have no problem admitting this; that we don't have the knowledge and training of doctors.
We should have less knowledge than them. We went to school for much shorter than they did and received less training.
There would be something seriously wrong if we did have equal knowledge, considering the fraction of schooling we have.
Who knows, maybe I can admit the above because of my brother and because I've seen first hand what he went through (we live and went to school in the same city (same school actually too for a part of the time due to our relative close ages).
Basically, I didn't have a brother for several years due to medical school and residency because they are both so tough and he worked so hard.
But I like to think hopefully I'd have the same view even if I didn't have my brother as a doctor.
So here's my 2nd question, am I the only NP that realizes (and who is actually honest enough to admit) that we're not equal to doctors and we don't have the depth of knowledge that physicians have?
Some may take this post to be anti NP. But I love being an NP. Love everyday and every kid I see. Especially love having a life which my brother doesn't have...
But again, I'm just being honest. This is my personal view. But I sometimes feel like I'm the only NP to have these viewpoints. No hard feelings, but this is just how I feel.
