The New Doctors in the House

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First, your statement shows your ignorance and complete lack of knowledge regarding NP coursework. What you call "fluff" courses (pharmacology, pathophysiology, acute and chronic health problems...these are the tips of the ice burg) makes it glaringly obvious that you have no idea what you are talking about. Pharmacology, for example, is a course about medications, how they act in the body, how they treat certain conditions, safe prescribing of medications, etc. Fluff? Not even close!! Acute and chronic health problems....um, don't you think it is important to know how to diagnose and manage these things in the clinical setting?
I'm sorry, but I just don't understand you you can look at a curriculum about which you obviously know nothing about and make a blanket statement saying that the training is inadequate and full of fluff. As a NP student, I can assure you there is nothing fluff about it. It is extremely stringent and challenging. Students in most programs must be above average in order to even pass courses...of you get a "C", you are out.
Unlike you, I will not pretend to have any knowledge of medical school curriculum, nor will I say that NP school is as difficult as medical school....that would be like comparing apples and oranges. NP school is NP school; medical school is medical school, just as an NP is an NP and an MD/DO is an NP/DO. NPs are not trying to be physicians....they are advanced practice nurses, and proud of it!!! If we wanted to be physicians, we would have gone to medical school!

swhcnp of WA 4:58PM August 03, 2010

Many posts have said over and over again that nurse practitioners are trying to be physicians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nurse practitioners are NURSES with advanced training...not advanced medical training, but advanced NURSING training. Nurse practitioners follow the nursing model of care, while physicians follow the medical model of care. In a nutshell, the nursing model is more holistic, focusing on the patient as an integral part of the diagnostic and treatment process and a member of the team, while the medical model is focused on the disease itself. Neither are wrong; they are just different. The goal of nurse practitioners and physicians is, however, the same; to help patients maintain or return to their highest quality of life. Rather than arguing about who is better or why the other is bad, why don't we just focus on what is important...the patient. We are all on the same team and everyone has their place on that team.

swhcnp of WA 4:20PM August 03, 2010

Regarding your quote "I am referring to the fact that NP training is not equivalent to doctors, and NPs need to stay out of the news media claiming such, and politicking to pay that is equal to physician reimbursement, without physician training."
I want to clarify this for you. NP are not trying to get salaries equivalent to physicians; they are trying to compensated by insurance companies for their charges by the same percentages as physicians. Currently, nurse practitioners are reimbursed only 85% of what a physician would be reimbursed for the same service.
If you are going to make accusations, please make accurate ones...something I have seen very little of so far from many posters on this issue.

swhcnp of WA 4:08PM August 03, 2010

Also, it is a matter of thousands of clinical hours and years of training.
If you think you get the same training as docs, then you are truly delusional.

Medical Student of WV 12:26AM July 27, 2010

No, we do NOT all get the same training.
Yes, we do need to all work as a team. A team has different members who perform different jobs--and when they all work together, everyone wins. Working together does NOT consist of claiming that APRN training is equivalent to physician training.... Claiming such, and attempting greater scope of practice via propaganda is COUNTER to the idea of a team.
I appreciate the extra time that nurses get to spend with patients. However, this is part of THEIR job, not the physicians. It is one thing to appreciate the input of nurses regarding patient status, and quite another to have that nurse then develop a course of action in response to this knowledge. That is outside the scope of nurse training.
Stop claiming equivalency and we will stop pointing out that nurses are NOT, in fact, equivalent.

Medical Student of WV 12:25AM July 27, 2010

I hope you realize that even with your "higher level" pathophysiology course, the actual practical application of all the classroom training is a totally different beast once we are all out there in the field. Nurses tend to know more about their patients because they are interacting with them more. But the bottom line is we all need to work as a team and stop throwing stones at who gets more training, we all get the real training in the field and we all need to work together.

Jan of NY 10:44AM July 23, 2010

First, your powers of observation may be significantly less than you realize, as you addressed your comment to the wrong commenter.
Second, I am not dismissing the role of nurses AS NURSES. That is, after all, within the realm of the NP training.
However, NPs are NOT QUALIFIED to be physicians. Please read my comment again--examine what your colleagues can do, at the bare minimum, to enter this field. You have to admit, it is nowhere near as stringent as physician training.
I hope you realize that your "advanced pathophysiology" is significantly less than an MD's or a DO's. If not, you are endangering patients by failing to realize where your training and scope of practice end and where a doctor's begins.

Medical Student of WV 9:56PM July 07, 2010

I have been an ER nurse for 15 years and am currently in a Nurse Practitioner program. I can promise you that when you launch your career in the medical field there will be a nurse like me that will save your backside when it comes to your H & P's, diagnostics, treatment and care of patients. I have worked with some of the most experienced MD's (Neurosurgeons, Orthopods, Plastics, etc.) that wouldn't have had a clue about what was actually going on with their patient's if it wasn't for the highly trained, well educated, and supremely observant advanced practice nurses that make them look so good. Furthermore, when it comes to making split minute decisions that ultimately lead to a patient's successful outcome, it usually comes from the diligent nurse who has an in-depth understanding of advanced pathophysiology and utilizes her well developed pharmacological knowledge to intervene before an MD even lays eyes on the patient. This type of stereotypical disqualification of highly competent, well trained, and well educated medical professionals is typical of someone who lacks the knowledge of the education, training and skills required of Nurse Practitioners.

Monica of AL 2:54AM June 30, 2010

Actually, you seem to have a lack of understanding of NP programs.
There is no standard for uniformity, only recommendations for NP programs. Therefore, schools like this one (http://www.simmons.edu/shs/academics/nursing/degrees/direct_entry.shtml) in Boston, take college graduates with NO nursing experience, and put them into a THREE YEAR program to become nurse practitioners.
You cannot replace the thousands and thousands of hours of training as a physician with the experience as a nurse. They are NOT interchangeable.
Nurse practitioners were designed to work with close physician supervision. Let the public beware: NPs are NOT doctors!!!
Almost no other field has such low standards for the privilege to be designated doctor.

Medical Student of WV 3:20PM June 27, 2010

The unfortunate part of all the above comments is the lack of understanding regarding nursing education. When you enter nursing school all the nursing courses include both information on nursing interventions as well as illnesses/diseases and their pathophysiology and treatment. Nurses are trained to provide care and education to include patients in their treatment. Nurses have to have a Bachelor's degree and at least 1 year post RN experience in order to apply to school to become a nurse practitioner. So they have fundamentals in nursing, medical surgical nursing, critical care nursing, psychiatric nursing, maternal child nursing, pediatrics. We learn every body system both from an normal and abnormal perspective. All of these courses have clinical experience associated with them. After graduation we work full-time in our area of interest. Many of us work for years full-time before attending nurse practitioner school. So we have several years of full-time clinical practice. Nurses approach patients from a different perspective. We look at patients as active partners in their care. We focus on education to allow people to care for themselves and maintain independence. In any profession you can come in contact with someone who is not empathetic in their care, but this should not reflect on an entire profession. Nurse practitioners are not trying to replace physicians. The physicians I work with respect my practice as much as I respect theirs. I would never pretend to know more than anyone else and that is the attitude you want in a provider. There is always more to learn and much is learned from daily interactions from patients.

Kelly of NY 7:07PM June 22, 2010