re: How do you feel about Nurse Practitioners?

Love mine. To be so young, she is very professional, knowledgeable and meticulous. Her father was a Tomcat pilot that shot down a Libyan jet in Gulf of Sidra, so I understand where she gets her drive to succeed in life from. As a Navy vet, I asked her how does it feel knowing your father was an awesome fighter pilot. She replied, “He has always just been dad to me.” I thought that was cool.

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an NP had to work as a nurse prior to becoming a NP which means they have more hands on experience with actual patient care than the doctor.

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that's not true at all.

From almost 2 decades of firsthand experience: there are np's leaving straight out of nursing school and, for all practical purposes, going right into np school. When they get into a medical setting, they can't perform even basic tasks that a 5 year rn knows in her sleep, especially in an emergency setting. As a result, at least in this area, there's no guarantee of quick employment or employment in a scenario ideal to the graduate. In many cases - and this is a blessing in disguise to their future patients - they have to take on a more traditional RN role, and for RN pay. There's so many of them that, at least in our area, they are becoming a dime a dozen - especially the mediocre ones that have an embarrassing amount of actual real world experience. The ones who have little to no practical application of administering healthcare to patients can just as likely be a liability than a hot commodity. Nobody, especially ones getting paid less, want to hold the hand of a coworker and help walk them through the baby steps of things that they ought to know if they've any business calling themselves a nurse, let alone a practitioner.

That said, I've seen a handful of NP's who worked for specialists and they were top notch. They acted as a liaison of sorts before I saw the specialist, but they got the whole story before doing so and had lots of helpful information and advice. Very knowledgeable and professional.

It should be mandatory that np students have a minimum of 3 (ideally 5) years of full time nursing experience in an ICU/ER setting, and the growing desire for np's to be able to practice without MD oversight in a GP setting is absolute lunacy. Nobody, and I mean nobody, should be okay with that idea.

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NPs don't know shite, which makes them better than MDs because MDs don't know shite but think that they do

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Look at this genius.

PA >>>>>>> NP

One nearly killed an employee of mine. Employee had been running fever for a few days, went in to an urgent care. NP tested her for Covid and Flu which both came back negative, and told her to rest and drink fluids.

Next day employee is having trouble breathing and goes to ER, and is diagnosed with double lung pneumonia. She was in ICU for four days, and is likely going to miss two to three more weeks of work.

NPs and PAs can be good when subspecialized, particularly in surgical subspecialties.

They generally suck with primary care but to be fair a lot of MDs do as well

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Maybe they didn’t have decreased lung sounds on initial exam.

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you still didnt read that post from which you quoted. there were multiple visits.

My wife is an NP and I also work in healthcare as a provider. I’ll be there first to tell you that not all providers are created equal and there are some terrible doctors and NP’s out there.

I agree that experience is king and NP’s who have extensive experience (my wife in the ER for 12 years) is a way better provider and more knowledge then the baby nurse who worked two years before getting her NP.

Regarding a specialty, my wife works with a surgeon and is his first assist in surgery (which also requires more education and a certification). She has a very extensive knowledge of the surgical procedures they perform and also assists in the procedure itself. While yes she is not the surgeon, she is very aware of the procedure, care, and how to do a consult as well as treat you after surgery.

As an aside most people don’t realize that very often a PA or NP is the one stitching you back up not the surgeon.

They are great if you don’t have a real problem.

But how do you know that you don’t have a real problem?