Nurse Practitioners vs. Medical Doctors: No Contest (Continued)

By about 2015, Doctor of Nursing Practice will be the degree for these N.P.s.

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(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I wrote about this on May 8^th in the Salem-News.com article: Nurse Practitioners: The New General Practice DOCTORS. I received several comments which encouraged me to do more research. Here it is.

'Tools of the trade' - Courtesy: nursingfaq.com

I was not aware of when the first N.P.’s came into being. I did know that R.N.’s had been doing “doctor work” for years without the State Board of Medicine going APE.

Actually it was the little secret between the Boards and the Doctors. The nurses were really practicing medicine and even EMT’s were delivering babies and other life-saving doctoring under the Good Samaritan rule.

Many nurses AND techs were practicing medicine in Emergency Rooms. As long as they weren’t being paid doctor prices for their work it was OK.

Most physicians are too proud and arrogant to be general practice doctors. It’s more prideful to have a whole bunch of mystic abbreviations behind the M.D. or D.O.

In 1965 the Medicare & Medicaid programs provided care to low income and underserved medical patients which physicians did not want to do. It was degrading to their M.D.s. I lectured Pharmacology to nurses starting about 1960. They ate it up books and all. Pharmacology is the basics of medical practice and nursing administrators sensed a real opening.

In 1965, nurse Loretta Ford and physician Henry Silver, M.D., created the first training program. Some executive nurses and physicians opposed this (turf protection). They viewed this with alarm, suspicion and distrust but the green curtain of Medical Mysticism was torn down and about 1970 they became more legitimate and patients were more than satisfied with their care.

In 1994 the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published that Nurse Practitioners were providing equivalent to and sometimes superior care provided by physicians.

Some physicians screamed bloody murder but the Journal of The American Medical Association concurred and the race was on. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing defined the advanced practice parameters as a Master of Science in Nursing and Licensure as an R.N.

Simultaneously with all this the Armed Services started training Physicians Assistants which became the junior grade Doctors in the services and these became the Super Medics with front line combatants.

The service physicians were quiet about this. They did not want to accompany troops in battle. I don’t know why, if it was OK for the privates, why not the M.D.s? As of now, about 28 states Legislatures and many physicians are screaming like eagles but the doctors do not want to do general practice.

They object to doctor degreed N.P.s using the term doctor but they do not object that veterinarians, chiropractors, dentists or naturopaths call themselves doctor. By about 2015, Doctor of Nursing Practice will be the degree for these N.P.s.

The AMA president Dr. Cecil Wilson says we should train more M.D.s but many of these are going to Law or Business schools – no night or weekend calls!

Nurse Practitioners can work independently in 22 states and more are coming along.

THE DOCTORS SHOULD GIVE UP WHILE THEY STILL HAVE A SHEEN OF RESPECTABILITY!!

Before any of that, Phil Leveque was a Combat Infantryman in the U.S. Army in WWII. He suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder more than 60 years after the war, and specialized in treating Veterans with PTSD during his years as a doctor in Molalla, Oregon. Do you have a question, comment or story to share with Dr. Leveque?
Email him: ASK DR. LEVEQUE

More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of WWII about his own experiences "from a foxhole". Order the book by mail by following this link: DOGFACE SOLDIER OF WWII If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.