No one wants to badmouth Florence Nightingale, but a new degree for nurses is causing bad blood between doctors and their longtime colleagues. The program confers the title of doctor on nurses, but some in the medical profession say only physicians should call themselves "doctor."
Dr. Steven Knope is a family practitioner in Tucson, Ariz. "If you're on an airline," he jokes, "and a poet with a Ph.D. is there and somebody has a heart attack, and they say 'Is there a doctor in the house?'-should the poet stand up?" Knope laughs. "Of course not."
Physicians such as Knope say the title of doctor implies a certain amount of training, hours in medical school that nurses just don't have. Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Association of Family Practitioners, says that while doctors place a high value on nurses, sharing the same title could confuse-and even harm-patients.
This is not to say that I agree with how Mundinger framed her argument. And I do question some of these programs, which are offering the DNP as a clinical doctorate, without showing evidence of providing a rigorous clinical education framework. Academia needs to step up to the plate, and address this as well.
I disagree with this statement.
The key component to remember is that being a nurse practioner, you are a registered nurse with advanced training and earn with that, more autonomy.
NP's do not have the expansive scope of practice that physicians do....so what you do you mean that they don't provide a "rigorous" clinical education framework??????? What do you think they do? Put in one clinical day a week and call it done?
Most dnp programs are 3 or 4 years long, typically post BSN. I have yet to find one that is shorter than 3 years.
Not all professions are going to require a Masters degree first.
Pharmacists that receive the PharmD...get their BS degree and most pharmacy school programs are 3 years.
The schools that have already started pushing over the CRNA's into a doctorate program, also, do not require a Master's first.
Same thing with doctorately prepared Physical Therapists.
The DISCIPLINE decides what is the necessary requirements to receive a doctorate in that discipline. They determine what the needs are. It is not determined by a different profession whining that life isn't fair.
This is a bogus unfounded argument. Patients are very much able to discern who is their physician and who isn't.
At my place of employment, PharmD's are in fact referred to as "Dr". They introduce themselves to the patients as such, "I'm Dr. So-and-So and I'm the pharmacist", they physicians call them Dr. when speaking to the patients and I call them Dr. when I am discussing them to the patients although I call them by their first names when not with patients. As of yet, not one of them has expressed confusion about their role in relation to their physician. Not one.
It's as simple as saying that's Dr. So-and-So your primary care doctor, that's Dr. Blankety-Blank your cardiologist and there's Dr. What's-his-face your pharmacist. The patient's get it, I don't know why ya'll don't.
Are you kidding me? I get confused as to the roles of who is the physician and who isn't in the hospital, and I'm a med student. It'ts fricking hard, and I can only imagine that if you're in bed, sick, and half-drugged the last thing you're going to remember is the distinction b/w "Dr. so and so the nurse in the long white coat with a stethoscope hanging around her neck and Dr. so and so the physician with the stethoscope hanging around her neck." Face it, you all look the same to patients and patient families, especially when you're all dressed in white coats and/or scrubs, and no one can read those badges, especially elderly patients who tend to have visual impairments. If I can't see your qualifications on your badge, chances are your patients can't read 'em either. Plus you have so many letters after your name, they're probably busy trying to figure out what they all mean anyway OR they're just figuring that you MUST be qualified to have that many abbreviations on your badge.
Your patients probably don't ask you because they're embarassed. I'm guessing that you're not horrible and mean to your patients, and who wants to ask their provider what the heck her position is again once they've already said it? Who wants to go, "So what is it that you do again, dear?"
No one wants to badmouth Florence Nightingale, but a new degree for nurses is causing bad blood between doctors and their longtime colleagues. The program confers the title of doctor on nurses, but some in the medical profession say only physicians should call themselves "doctor."
Dr. Steven Knope is a family practitioner in Tucson, Ariz. "If you're on an airline," he jokes, "and a poet with a Ph.D. is there and somebody has a heart attack, and they say 'Is there a doctor in the house?'-should the poet stand up?" Knope laughs. "Of course not."
Physicians such as Knope say the title of doctor implies a certain amount of training, hours in medical school that nurses just don't have. Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Association of Family Practitioners, says that while doctors place a high value on nurses, sharing the same title could confuse-and even harm-patients.
Arrogance, arrogance...I want to become a nurse practitioner and I will and I know I will be able to take a good care of my patients, maybe better than some of the allopathic doctors...thank you very much, I became arrogant myself.
In the article, Dr. Steven Knope (anti-doctoral prepared nurses) attempted to drive his point home regarding patient confusion by asking the question of whether or not a doctoral prepared poet would stand up if they overheard someone shouting for a doctor on a plane that had an individual suffering from an MI onboard. Is he drawing a parallel between doctoral prepared nurses and poets? If so, going forward when he asks for a nurse to do something in the hospital then I think it’s appropriate to answer that the doctor nurse is busy authoring a sonnet or a haiku at the moment. Clean the patient yourself doctor doctor.
I just LOVE your post. So logical and true, but so funny!!!! You made my day, I will show your post to all my nurse friends and maybe even a doctor would laugh a little (allopathic I mean, not one of those doctor poets).
PS I am editing, I forgot to say, I laughed my ass off...thank you!!! I just love your sense of humor and smarts.
As far as I am concerned it is an insult to any RN to be called doctor.
I find myself continually having to correct certain doctors on their surgical technique, their surgical scrub is inefective and boy do they get offened when you try to correct them.
Many of them, especially anesthesia practitioners think the do not need to wear a mask in the OR .
My list could go on into infinity so even when I obtain my doctorate I will refused to be called by that title.
If you earn your doctorate you also earn the right to be called Doctor. We can't take away that right in this instance just because some don't like it. People can make the distinction on their badge and in their introduction to their patients. Everyone should be identifying themselves in these ways already so it certainly isn't an additional hardship. We can't allow it to be okay for all others with doctorates to use the title Doctor, but take that away from nurses who obtain doctorates. They should have the same right as all the others who possess the same degree.
I think Doctors in Philosophy or Education are not that stupid to stand up and present themselves as Medical Doctors. Lol. Common Sense. Besides, when a nurse finishes PhD, he/she will probably become a dean of a college or something like that. Being staff in a hospital is a rare place to be for such accomplishment. ^_^
I am a nurse with a PhD in nursing. I wear my badge with my degree on it so everyone can see I have a PhD (if they look), but I call myself a nurse. I think it makes a lot of sense to make physicians call themselves that, not "doctors."
Their profession has been very successful in convincing the public that they are the only "doctors" and that they know everything, from how to feed a newborn to how to exercise after a heart attack. They do not, and should not pretend to.
I hope you never make the mistake of doing this! If I was a doctorate in education and was YOUR professor...I would have lengthy talk with you for the shear lack of respect of discrediting my educational status!!!! Educate yourself...a Doctorate degree is the pinnacle of ones field...IT DOES NOT MEAN "doctor or medicine" It means "Doctor of ....." That assumption is ignorant, arrogant and severly misinformed! A Doctor of whatever deserves they're title EVERYWHERE! not just out on the street. It is hard earned and should be respected! Doctorate refers to expertise in your respective field...Doctor of Medicine is an expert in medicine, a Doctor of Nursing Practice is an expert in nursing practice, a Doctor of Engineering is an expert in engineering science...are you gettin the point?!?! Must school be in session...where you not taught this in school...this concept is basic knowledge...
Mex
I do agency work in a very academic place there are some places where 1/4 of the pts/residents are drs. I still address them as such regardless of the situation, even if they are non-verbal or non-responsive and no matter what their degree is in. its respect for the hard work and effort they put in to acheive a very lofty goal.
Specializes in HOSPICE,MED-SURG, ONCOLOGY,ORTHOPAEDICS.
"Your patients probably don't ask you because they're embarassed. I'm guessing that you're not horrible and mean to your patients, and who wants to ask their provider what the heck her position is again once they've already said it? Who wants to go, "So what is it that you do again, dear?" "
What was that??? The nurse would be the one making sure that the patient DOES know the position of all of the people in the room. The nurse is the one who stays to decipher the physicians message for the patient and the nurse is the one coaching the patient prior to the meeting that they have the RIGHT to ask questions and to know the titles of those present in the room.
Yeah, the guy they quoted for this article with his silly airline allegory is a jerk.
However, the DNP degree is still a piece of garbage that fails to rise to the level of academic rigor we associate with a doctoral course of study. With direct-entry/accelerated options (there are schools where degreed non-nurses with no BSN can earn the DNP in just three years, how many of you know that?), online classes, limited hours of clinical training, no standardization of curriculum with heavy variability from program to program, a strong presence of courses having nothing to do with clinical patient care or health science (health administration, statistics, nursing leadership, nursing theory, etc.), and no formal exit examination (the much-hyped optional pilot exam that Mundinger described as being based on the USMLE Step 3 all but disappeared from nursing media when the first cohort of DNPs took it last fall with a 49% passing rate)... how exactly did we all expect physicians to respond to an increased push for authority and scope with this worthless degree backing it up? It probably doesn't help that Mundinger herself has presented Columbia's DNPs as nurses "with all the medical knowledge of a physician."
There are a heck of a lot of MSN prepared NPs in the world who neither want nor support this transparent ploy to bringing more cash into nursing schools while artificially enhancing prestige. There is no evidence that current non-DNP NPs are inadequately educated and trained nor that the DNPs will become superior providers. What exactly is the need? Why put this embarassment of a degree out there and give all the anti-NP lobbies more ammunition to criticize nursing education and preparation?
It's silly to argue about whether one who has earned a doctoral degree deserves the title of "Dr." Of course they do. But I'm not convinced that someone who finishes this pseudo-doctorate in its present form (which far more closely resembles a MHA/MBA/MPH hybrid) should really claim to have earned a clinical doctorate with a straight face.
BabyLady, BSN, RN
2,300 Posts
I disagree with this statement.
The key component to remember is that being a nurse practioner, you are a registered nurse with advanced training and earn with that, more autonomy.
NP's do not have the expansive scope of practice that physicians do....so what you do you mean that they don't provide a "rigorous" clinical education framework??????? What do you think they do? Put in one clinical day a week and call it done?
Most dnp programs are 3 or 4 years long, typically post BSN. I have yet to find one that is shorter than 3 years.
Not all professions are going to require a Masters degree first.
Pharmacists that receive the PharmD...get their BS degree and most pharmacy school programs are 3 years.
The schools that have already started pushing over the CRNA's into a doctorate program, also, do not require a Master's first.
Same thing with doctorately prepared Physical Therapists.
The DISCIPLINE decides what is the necessary requirements to receive a doctorate in that discipline. They determine what the needs are. It is not determined by a different profession whining that life isn't fair.