re: How do you feel about Nurse Practitioners?

They give better sponge baths than the regular nurses per grandpa.

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It all depends, not all NP’s are equal.

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Neither are all doctors. This reminds me of the old question:

What do you call the person who graduated dead last in their medical school class?









Doctor


NPs and PAs are great because they're accessible, can write your prescriptions, and will often spend way more time with you than the doctor would...so you feel like you're actually getting answers.

Only the most basic stuff.

Their training is woeful and lacks rigor. The qualifications vary from training program to training program. Some might, might get 1000 hours hands on training. That's 25 weeks. Some get gar less. Internal Medicine doctors on the other hand get 10,000-15,000 hours of clinical experience. That's five or more years.

Additionally, getting into medical school is hundreds of times more difficult than nursing school and then advance practice programs. Pre-med is more difficult than anything a nurse encounters. Odds are only about 1-2% of APRNs could pass the three steps of the USMLE.

It’s confusing because they are NPs but really are much less slutty than nurses.

I think their role in the medical field would be better understood if they were called Almost Doctors.

The one that I live with bitches a lot

I see one for minor stuff when I need a quick appointment and a doc for my yearly physical.

she is HOT.

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Doctors are some of the greediest scumbag bastards in the world who will charge $15k for a 12 minute procedure without

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You think doctors are setting that price, not the hospital that has to offset the cost of that same procedure done for free on the 4 indigent patients that had it done just before you? Do you think your insurance actually pays that amount?

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You think doctors are setting that price

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yes

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not the hospital

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the hospital is run by doctors

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to offset the cost of that same procedure done for free on the 4 indigent patients

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Why am I paying for indigent patients? No other industry does this.

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Do you think your insurance actually pays that amount?

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No. The doctors accept much much less from insurance companies. They only stick it to individuals.

Why would a doctor or hospital charge a patient thousands of dollars for a procedure when they accept a fraction of that amount for the same procedure from a big insurance company? Why would a doctor charge me $15k for a procedure but only charge BCBS $1500 for the same procedure? None of it makes any logical sense and I blame the doctors. Not the guy fresh out of med school but the ones who sit on the board of the group or hospital that they own.

I'd rather see the NP than a doc unless I think I have a serious problem. RNs saved my life before, if they would have listened to the docs I wouldn't be here today.

I know quite a few NP’s and my wife is one.My opinion is that RN’s that work for 10-20 years before becoming an NP are ,in many cases ,very good.In fact I know several that are better than the average FP Dr.or Internist and I would much rather see them.

On the other hand I worked in ICU 35 years and I had some co-workers that were not good nurses and they went on to become NP’s.No way would I want to see them for anything.

Then there are RN’s that work one year after graduating nursing school then become NP’s.I wouldn’t have much faith in them until they have quite a few years experience.

I have some anecdotal stories of dumb NP’s,I have a family member that is Bi-polar.She is very smart and has done very well in a demanding profession because she stays on her meds.She saw a NP that did thyroid lab work on her,and put her on thyroid medicine.
She went totally off the rails quickly and it took couple of months to get her straight.I researched it extensively,only an Endocrinologist or a Psychatrist should ever try to treat a bi-polar for thyroid issues.Not a FP or an Internist,certainly not an NP.My feelings are she should have known that.
(Turns out she didn’t even need thyroid medicine)
Another NP I know with her doctorate was appalled,that I took ivermectin when I got Covid.”You took dog medicine”. She actually did not know there were any human uses for ivermectin.She was fascinated to learn it was used for scabies,head lice and rosacea in the US.She did not know it was used in Africa for prevention of river blindness or lymphatic filariasis(elephantiasis).
Somehow I think she should have known this,with a Doctorate.(I also asked a Dr.his opinion on ivermectin,his reply was it was good for dogs and horses).I suspect he knew better,he was just following the narrative.

As far as NP’s being Independent Practitioners,my wife doesn’t want to be one.She is exceptional in the cardiac area,diagnosing,ordering and regulating cardiac and bp meds,She’s fairly competent in internal medicine area.Infections,she generally looks up appropriate antibiotics and dosages.
Diabetics,she doesn’t want to try and treat them-they go to a Dr.
In other words,she know what she knows and what she doesn’t know.

To be honest though,there are some really stupid Drs.Some of the stories she comes home with are mind-boggling.
Ex-she saw one pt.that came in that was feeling really bad and thought he might have heart problems.He had been(according to him)to two E.R.s and 2 Drs. and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him.She did lab work,white count on his CBC was off the charts.Got him in with a Oncologist next morning,he had leukemia,Dr.called her and told him the man would have been dead in 2 weeks if she hadn’t caught it.
I’ve got good many more stories,don’t want to type out a book.

The medical world is a scary place regardless whether one is seeing a NP or a Dr.
I truly believe the Harvard study-medical errors 3’rd leading cause of death.