what do you call them?

[eak16]

I am asking this as a patient, not as a professional-

When you are a patient, and you are speking to a doctor, you call them Dr So and so, and when you are a patient and seeing a nurse, you call them Nurse So and so, this is an acknowledgement of their education and liscensing.

So what do you call a Nurse Practitioner??

I know that calling them "Doctor" the way i know many patients do is not right because they are a nurse by training and proud of it, but is calling them nurse also innapropriate because they have added credentials and serve a different role than many nurses?

"Nurse Practitioner Miller" just sounds so bulky. What do nurse practitioners WANT to be called and what have you been called. What is proffessionally appropriate?

Just curious.

[midwestRN]

I don't know the answer, but I have another one. What do Physician Assistants want to be called. We have a fast-track ER with only PA's. I never know how to tell the pts who's coming. "Mr. so and so"? "Assistant so and so"? Nothing sounds right. When talking directly to the PA, he asks that I call him by his first name.

[Love-A-Nurse]

off topic a little bit, if i may. does the np have more independence in their scope of practice than the pa?

[SHELLYBELLYRN]

Just my $.02 worth...............

My mom is a PA and just wants to be called by her first name......she ALWAYS corrects patients when they call her Dr.______. All of her patients are under her primary care, so they all consider her "their Doctor", but she won't allow them to call her that. (BTW, she corrects some of them EVERY time they come into the office).

When I did ER rotation in nursing school (preceptorship, so I was only nursing student in ER at that time, and was there FT for 5 weeks)...........the PAs there also just went by their first names..........and always wore their badges that said So-and-so, PA-C

[Dr. Kate, BSN, RN]

Just a personal thing, but I hate, find demeaning, will not tolerate being called "nurse _____" To me it reaks of "you're just a nurse." I know it's not meant that way. This is just me. I far prefer to be called by my first name--that's how I introduce myself. As with anyone you have just met, if they don't tell you by the way they introduce themselves, ask what they want to be called.

[deespoohbear]

The NP who works for our family's doctor is called by her first name, per her request. There is another NP and PA at the doctors' offices in time, and they are both called by their first names, per their request. I would rather be called by my first name, or Mrs. "Smith" than be addressed as Nurse "Smith." Just doesn't sound right for me. Some of our younger docs told us to call them by their first names. I will do that, but not when we are in front of the patients. I do think by the younger docs allowing us to address them by their first names it has helped break down some of the "God" complex some docs seem to have and improves our professional relationship with them. Most of the nurses on our floor have a good rapparot with the young docs. I know I got off topic here and I apologize to the OP. :)

[Dayray, RN]

Id either go with their first name or nurse so and so. Nurses arent usualy into titles or status. When people call me Mr. it makes me feel as though our relationship is inpersonal and that is definatly not what I want with my patients.

I've never been called Nurse DayRay but I think I might like that, I would probebly still tell them to call me by my first name though.

[prmenrs, RN]

I call mine by her first name, but we're a little laid back out here.