I think a lot of the hate is towards MLP who think they can completely replace physicians. Not many people argue that some of the work physicians can do can be replaced by NP or pas, but all ? no, not in any single specialty can all. The organizations supporting NPs seem to portray this very aggressively so even those NPs who are good, know their limits, and do what is right get painted with a red brush.
I do not doubt that something like the above would happen at some point to some extent but job boards/markets just do not have that picture. Where I live there is a tremendous physician shortage yet a severe glut of PA and NPs. The hospital systems and large clinic systems could hire a zillion NP/PA quickly if they wanted to, but many go without jobs. Yet there are thousands of physician openings that go unfilled, that almost always are not filled by NP/PA. There will always be a mix of physicians and MLPs but I don't really see a ratio of 1:4 or 1:5 like anesthesia happening since there is always something happening in seeing patients, anesthesia is just mostly monitoring and has a much narrower scope, something that allows more supervising to occur.
We can all care for the worried well, which is a lot of our business (not by our choice people are just anxious in general). We will see, its an interesting topic.
And a lot of patient's when paying the same amount for care no matter who they see will often pick a physician. Not always but if it were not the case primary care clinics would be not offering 300k plus to start in my area for a 4.5 workweek.
