re: How do you feel about Nurse Practitioners?

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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.