What's the difference between medicine and nursing?

[Livinstrong85]

I was reading a post recently where several people seemed to be agitated that someone called something in nursing "medical." I understand the fields are different, but really, are they THAT different from each other? You are both providing clinical care to a patient. Nurses spend more time with the patient and provide a lot of the direct care, but other than that, what's the huge difference?

[chloecatrn]

Doctors are allowed to diagnose and prescribe. Nurses are not.

[sairin8]

Doctors carry pagers. Nurses do the paging. I once came up with why that was really profound, but I'm not in the mood for profound right now and can't remember off the top of my head

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

Doctors diagnose.

Nurses care.

And anyone who doesn't think nurses prescribe has never had the "Dr. Smith, Mrs. Jones in 3920 came in with CHF decompensation, her BP is 212/118, manually, and her lungs are wet. She was getting Lasix PO, and no diuretics or BP meds were ordered. Do you want to do 40 of Lasix IV q12 or a one time dose of 80 followed by 40 q24, and do you want the 100mg Toprol PO BID or do you want to give her a one time clonidine 0.2 or 5 mg IV Lopressor and then the Toprol?" conversation.

[wildlaurel]

Doctors, PAC's, NP's, etc., treat the disease - nurses treat the patient's response to the disease. That is the nursing school answer. I do believe that, but you also have to be able to anticipate what the doctor is going to order based on the patient. I work in an ER and when we have somebody come in with chest pain, respiratory distress, potential sepsis - whatever it may be, it is my job to anticipate the labs, other diagnostics and treatment the doctor might order. At the same time, you're reassuring the patient and their family and trying to keep them educated as to why you're doing what you're doing.

[healthstar, BSN, RN]

10 or more years( unless you take summer classes) of school to be a Doctor; and 4 years to be RN-BSN. Docs get paid much more and they spend less time with patients. There are many differeces but they have one goal in common(they both take care of patients) in their own special way.

[Asystole RN]

Docs treat disease. Nurses treat people. Subtle but important distinction.

[GilaRRT]

Nursing is really no different from any other allied provider expect we can distinguish ourselves as a unique and fully autonomous profession by inventing special nurse language and renaming all those "medical" words.

[grandmawrinkle]

You know, this thread seems a little silly to me. Not sure if OP is a nurse or not, but he/she is obviously trying to make a fight.

I think it's pretty common knowledge what the difference between medicine and nursing is, at least from a layman's point of view.

To nerdtonurse: If you think that the few sentences in quotes you spouted off is something that you are qualified to do given your licensure and education level, I'm scared of you, and I'm more scared of any physician that would listen to any of what you said without examining the patient.

[netglow, ASN, RN]

GW, this higher trust level between specific MD and most excellent tenured nurse is not uncommon in level one. At least where I've been. This type of relationship isn't taken lightly but built over time.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

To nerdtonurse: If you think that the few sentences in quotes you spouted off is something that you are qualified to do given your licensure and education level, I'm scared of you, and I'm more scared of any physician that would listen to any of what you said without examining the patient.

*** I don't know about where you work but in the hospitals I have always worked at nurses practice medicine by proxy all the time. I have always worked in teaching hospitals. Our interns and residents will ask us "what do you want", or "hmmm, what do you usually do", or "what would you suggest" or "what do you think we should do". In the ICUs I have worked at we take it for granted that we always know exactly what it is we need ordered before we call the physician, especially if it is a covering physician who doesn't really know the patient. When we call or have a physician at the bedside to deal with a problem, or during rounds we are fully expected to offer suggestions. They are not always followed but if not we get an explanation why not. In code and emergencies our word goes. We ICU nurses deal with dozens of codes a year over many years of a career, the on call resident may see 2 or 3 codes while s/he is on call for the few years they are in residency. There are there to learn, not run the code.

[Ambi Dextrose]

The field of medicine get respected. MD's are proud of their profession.

The field of nursing gets scrutinized. Just read other posts in this site. Too many to mention.