Nursing to Doctor

RunBabyRN · Jun 22, 2014

If you think nurses just "follow care plans," you still have a lot to learn (I saw from your other post you haven't yet started nursing school). Nurses have a HUGE influence over patient care. You may or may not have seen much of this, since you work in a SNF, but when you get some time on the hospital floor, you'll see how much nurses are really in charge. The MDs write the orders, but half of the time, it's because a nurse told them, "My patient needs orders for X, Y & Z," and the nurse can take a phone order to get things rolling, and the MD comes in later and signs it. Nurses are the ones with patients for significant portions of the day. MDs may spend 5 minutes with them here and there.

You're right that the medical model and the nursing model are different. The medical model looks at a disease process. The nursing model looks at a patient as a whole.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2014

Since this is a nursing site you will probably not have too many nurses here who are MD's. You might want to find a student MD site.

Me personally I never wanted to be an MD. I didn't want call. I didn't want an office. I didn't want staff.

I have found plenty of autonomy in critical care and emergency medicine. I see that you are a pre-nursing student and a sophomore in college and want to work with babies, children and L&D. Are you already in a program?

Yes there are nurses who change to medical school to be MD's after being an RN and they are sucessful MD's There are nurses who continue their education to be an APRN, CRNA, or DNP and have independent practice.

pre-unsure · Jun 22, 2014

Excuse my lack of lack or terminology for saying they just "follow care plans", that's not the way I was trying to get my point across. I understand nurses have a huge influence on patient care, as they are on the front line.

ATBStudent · Jun 22, 2014

Excuse my lack of lack or terminology for saying they just "follow care plans", that's not the way I was trying to get my point across. I understand nurses have a huge influence on patient care, as they are on the front line.
My point was just whether or not anyone felt like they wanted to make an even bigger impact on patient care, involving more medically-related knowledge and chose to go to med school.

I think you're digging a bigger hole with that one. There are 7 nurses in my family and I guarantee you they will say they do make the biggest impact. They advocate, medicate, get meals, make them comfortable. Unless you're a surgeon, a Doctors impact is limited to diagnosis, treatment and follow up - and nurses take care of 2 of those things while they're in the hospital.

I don't think you're going to find what you want on this site. The nurses on here are rightfully proud of what they do - it could be offensive to hear someone belittling their efforts...which you are unintentionally doing by implying that they just follow orders and have less of a medical impact.

vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN · Jun 22, 2014

Many people told me I'm not suited for nursing because I'm "too smart". College professors and my mom told me this. I began to wonder if nurses ever got to act independently or if they just followed orders.

I can tell you, I'm a new grad LVN and I do work independently. I do make important decisions that impact my patients/residents life. I am in charge of an entire building when I work PMs or NOCs. I supervise aides. I implement nursing interventions independently. I do assessments. The work is not mind numbing, nor is it simply following Drs orders.

As a nurse, I do write care plans. I also get the wonderful opportunity to do patient teaching. Sure, the doctor approves meds I'm teaching on, but I get to put the info into laymans terms so my patient will hopefully be compliant. I get the chance to sit and talk with my patients and hear their concerns and tailor my teaching to their needs.

As a nurse, I am able to help the "whole patient" and not "just" treat their symptoms with a pill or procedure.

That being said, one day, I do think I want to be a nurse practitioner so that I can prescribe medical treatments as well as continue to talk with patients and do teaching in a hopefully, meaningful manner that gets through to them.

klone, MSN, RN · Jun 22, 2014

Excuse my lack of lack or terminology for saying they just "follow care plans", that's not the way I was trying to get my point across. I understand nurses have a huge influence on patient care, as they are on the front line.

Certified nurse midwives are completely autonomous primary care providers and in most states, do not need physician oversight whatsoever (I prefer saying "physician" rather than "doctor" because it's more precise and there are actually many nurses - as well as other non-medical professionals - who are also "doctors").

RunBabyRN · Jun 23, 2014

Excuse my lack of lack or terminology for saying they just "follow care plans", that's not the way I was trying to get my point across. I understand nurses have a huge influence on patient care, as they are on the front line.

I see that you edited this, which is wise, because I think many of us (on a site full of nurses) feel that nurses have a much bigger impact on patient care than do MDs. As Esme stated, I doubt that you will find MDs on this site that are former (or also) nurses.

You'll be surprised when you get to nursing school how much medical knowledge nurses are required to know. I've been in health care for a long time, and I've worked with nurses a lot, but when I got started in my first semester, I was like, WHOA, OH HOLY CRAP. I think that until you've either been to nursing school or lived with someone going through it (like a spouse), you don't really know how much nurses know and for how much we are responsible. Many nursing students FREAK OUT at that point (you'll see a ton of posts on this site with regards to this). I think that what you've seen working at a SNF is nurses (particularly RNs) in a position to only have time to throw meds at people, which is NOT what nurses, generally, WANT to be doing. This is the kind of thing that is why SNFs tend to have very high turnover and will take new grads. I DO NOT say this to diminish what SNF nurses do, because I CANNOT IMAGINE doing what they do. It's a lot of stress with very little reward, and they don't get an opportunity to spend time with their patients or really get to influence care and adjust or create care plans the way that nurses in other settings can. One of the things nursing students have beat into us is writing care plans. It's a HUGE part of what we do. We write nursing diagnoses and have to be prepared to make changed based on evidence.

To answer your original questions, I do know of an obstetrician that is also a certified nurse midwife, and he went to OB school, which I imagine was so that he could have a wider scope of practice (eg. cesareans PRN), but he tends to provide care as a midwife, and his patients love him for this.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Jun 23, 2014

How was your experience with transitioning from being a nurse to becoming a doctor?

I do not believe there are any members on our nursing forum who have made the transition to become a physician. Physicians typically visit forums designed for doctors and/or student doctors.