Beyond Bedside? Advanced Practice? Really?

But I wouldn't be so quick to denigrate my "feelings" on the subject, for as long as nurses "feel" punked by MDs, they will continue to try to pretend they are "just as good as" MDs and will debase themselves as they seek MD approval. And THAT is the worst possible path the nursing profession can walk.

There is no shame in leaving nursing to become a PA. There is no shame in leaving nursing to go to medical school. But there is a real shame in feeling that nurses are "less than" doctors just because they take "medical" orders from doctors. Nurses are the profession of caring. MDs are the profession of applied science whereby they diagnose and prescribe or perform treatments. But when nurses try to play catch up to MDs they are admitting that their profession is less than the MD profession, and absolutely nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, medicine will always fail. People will all die eventually. Nursing, the care we give for those who cannot care for themselves, never fails. MDs have to act like asses to nurses and pretend to be superior, because deep down they know they cannot give people what they promise. They know they cannot save a life.

We should not have NPs in the nursing profession. They should should be a completely separate profession on the side of medicine.

Because remember, there are two elements in healthcare, two primary actors: the MD and the RN, and everyone else is an assistant to one or the other.

I'd be willing to bet your views are in the minority.

I didn't enter the nursing profession to be a bedside nurse. I didn't particularly enjoy being a bedside nurse. I was "just putting in my time" to move on to what I actually wanted to do. Which, I guess, according to you, is to "debase myself" and pander to, or "seek approval from MDs". Believe it or not, everyone entering the nursing profession doesn't want to remain a bedside RN. For many it's just a hoop to jump through so that they can go on to doing what they actually want.

And I think it's utterly ridiculous for you to say that there are nurses and physicians and all other health care providers are there to assist these two groups. There are many distinct professions in healthcare and none are better than any other. Climb off your high horse.

At the end of the day you have some serious issues you need to work through. People can choose to be whatever they want to be, and no one gives two craps what you think about it. You want to be a bedside nurse, be a bedside nurse. Worry about yourself rather than what everyone else is doing. No sense in worrying about something so very out of your control.

I read through all the comments and OPs rambling, almost incoherent statements. And I sincerely hope that most bedside nurses are nothing like the OP. I want to work with professionals. Professional nurses who value science and know their "stuff". It's great to sponge bath patients. I'm glad the OP is all for that. But I want to work with nurses who can evaluate labs, know their medications inside and out (or at least utilize technology to look up these medications, so they don't kill someone), and who can evaluate the (vital) members of the healthcare team. They don't view NPs and physicians as competition or devalue the contributions of pharmacists, PT, OT, and social workers.

Really, all of these ramblings have me wondering in what venue the OP works. It appears that he/she doesn't have a firm grasp of science, the field of medicine, or of nursing. That's scary.

And if you cannot see anything other than the person in the bed in the hospital, then you are doing your patients and community a huge disservice. The real ability to impact patients is when they are out in the community, living their lives -- screening and prevention; early detection and management of diseases and risk factors. And in order to effectively treat our patients and communities, we need all the players to be on their game -- NPs, physicians, nurses, nurse managers, quality, etc, etc, etc.

You seem so ill-informed, that I almost don't believe that you are a practicing nurse.

I know what bedside nurses do (at least the good ones), but the way you describe your practice and interactions with physicians and NPs (not to mention pharmacists, social work, and therapists) along with your dreadful lack of knowledge regarding the role and training of NPs (that you started a thread to criticize) leads me to believe that there are probably some professional nursing skills lacking. If you start a thread to complain about other nursing roles without any understanding of what those roles entail, and then admit that you can barely tolerate working with any of the care team (who, by the way, are tasked with caring for the same patients you are), then you open yourself up to a bit of scrutiny.

You seem to base many of your thoughts on feelings rather than facts -- and I can't help but think that puts your patients at a disadvantage.

And, I guess that we should all be glad that you are proud to be practicing at the bare minimum that your state deems necessary to maintain licensure?

What in the world are you talking about? Seriously, that doesn't even justify a response. What exactly do you think bedside RNs do?

Fortunately, it only matters what my board of nursing thinks--and the hospital I work for.

Opinions on NP Roles, Nurses leaving the bedside, How every other nurse should work in support of the bedside nurse as in opposition to helping the patient, Nurse Titles..... are all determined and bestowed by regulatory agencies and hospitals not by the self-proclaimed ruler of the internet who in his mind determines all that is right in nursing. Any opposing view point to the status quo which has been developed by years of evidence based practices and backed up by countless studies leading to helping many, many patients better be backed up by serious, robust evidence and be much better than the "argument" of "but I don't like it that way."