Nurse practitioner delusion / "Noctors" / "Midlevel staff" - Nurses get a 1 year degree and start thinking they are better than doctors

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NoReturn said:
I had to explicitly ask for a doctor last time I went to the doctor's office and when I did everyone acted like I was inconveniencing them.
Feels bad, man.
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Fuck, I wouldn’t feel a bit bad about it. I have been known to make a comment like “I guess your practice would run a lot more smoothly without the pesky patients” when practitioners or their staff cop an attitude about me asking for basic shit that I’m paying for.

Now, whenever my elderly parents report back to me about their doctor’s appointments, they invariably end up being NP/PA appointments with alarming outcomes. I’d go with them to every single appointment if they’d let me.
This time, my mother finally got an appointment with a gastroenterologist for chronic (near-daily for over a year) constipation. All the NP did was order blood work and then prescribe antibiotics for her low white blood cell count — no exploration of why her WBCs might be down in the first place, just a script for antibiotics for an older woman whose gut is already a mess. And healthcare practitioners wonder why people trust Dr. Google more at this point.
 
John Andrews Stan said:
Now, whenever my elderly parents report back to me about their doctor’s appointments, they invariably end up being NP/PA appointments with alarming outcomes. I’d go with them to every single appointment if they’d let me.
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If your parents have online patient portals for their doctors, have you asked them to give you access? Doubly so if your parents have the option for online portals but haven't signed up.

Especially with chronic conditions, the ability for official asynchronous communication with a specialist is priceless. You can ask "hey, what are we doing about X in the context of Y," and they can give you a brief answer (and potentially write orders) without feeling put on the spot, or that their deviating from the script will have them running behind the draconian "productivity" requirements of their corporate masters that make them delegate appointments to NPs in the first place. If it's an NP answering, they can kick complicated things over to the MD/DO, how it's supposed to work.

I mean, it's a shitshow all around, but the shit is coming from further above. The system is creaking and groaning.
 
John Andrews Stan said:
And healthcare practitioners wonder why people trust Dr. Google more at this point.
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We're at a point where almost everyone now has some version of the "I caught my doctor looking up my symptoms in the hallway when I left the patient room to take a leak."-story, so really they shouldn't be surprised.
 
NoReturn said:
We're at a point where almost everyone now has some version of the "I caught my doctor looking up my symptoms in the hallway when I left the patient room to take a leak."-story, so really they shouldn't be surprised.
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In my experience they don’t even bother hiding it anymore. Particularly aggravating is when they start Googling and then repeat the possibilities you’d told them you’d already sourced, as if you should be so grateful for their expertise.

At least my GP doesn’t fob me off with NPs or PAs. But that’s about as much as I can say for him.
 
NoReturn said:
We're at a point where almost everyone now has some version of the "I caught my doctor looking up my symptoms in the hallway when I left the patient room to take a leak."-story, so really they shouldn't be surprised.
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My PCP is pretty transparent about pulling things up in UpToDate and flipping the screen over to show me, but he's younger and he's still at the "ooh, hey, this new study came out recently that's applicable to <x>, let me show you" stage. Google is concerning, but I'd rather have a provider look things up on a legit database than stick with what they learned 20 years ago.

Kind of related systemic complaint: I'm happy to see providers using AI to write letters to insurance for prior auth. Insurance companies in the US have been using pages of dense bullshit against patients customers for so long that it's fun to see someone throw pages of automated bullshit right back at them. I'm sure it won't last, but for now they deserve it.
 
John Andrews Stan said:
In my experience they don’t even bother hiding it anymore. Particularly aggravating is when they start Googling and then repeat the possibilities you’d told them you’d already sourced, as if you should be so grateful for their expertise.

At least my GP doesn’t fob me off with NPs or PAs. But that’s about as much as I can say for him.
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At this point in my life I see GPs as nothing more than an extra expense you have to pay before you're allowed to see a specialist.
Doctors are for procedures/surgery you can't do at home, and meds you can't get otc. That's it.

Aunt Carol said:
Kind of related systemic complaint: I'm happy to see providers using AI to write letters to insurance for prior auth. Insurance companies in the US have been using pages of dense bullshit against patients customers for so long that it's fun to see someone throw pages of automated bullshit right back at them. I'm sure it won't last, but for now they deserve it.
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NoReturn said:
At this point in my life I see GPs as nothing more than an extra expense you have to pay before you're allowed to see a specialist.
Doctors are for procedures/surgery you can't do at home, and meds you can't get otc. That's it.
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Yeah, same. Mine is a stop-gap for necessary prescriptions while I try to find a specialist that will do an actual IRL appointment instead of telehealth bullshit. I can also get blood work done there and the results come back immediately. I consider myself very fortunate to have a mediocre but friendly GP who will make time for me same-day if I ask and whose staff always returns messages and sends prescriptions promptly.
 
Abyssal Bulwark said:
My mother works in a college environment and has met many female students who are in nursing training. She says the lion's share of them are smug and snotty. Certain professions attract a certain type.
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My personal cow, shrimpsisbugs.tumblr.com (changes adress constantly) is both a nurse and dog trainer in training, so yeah. She hates men, can not take criticism even online (try looking up snickers salad post of hers) and her only valid opinions are children good,pitbull fans get bend.
 
Hi, late to this and I'm not gonna power level, instead I'm gonna power level my mom. (don't worry about social taboos about insulting my parent, I basically mentally cut her off due to her behavior towards our family and bystanders)
My family is a turbulent tale which I am not gonna disclose for your and my sanity. But what you need to know for this story is that my mother is basically a confirmed vulnerable narcissist (not the Kanye kind, hes grandiose, but the more insidious and deceptive kind)

When she doesn't overshare her painful past, trauma dump or guilt trip everyone who gives her time of day, she talks about how she is "so much smarter than doctors" and "if I didn't work there all the doctors would be out of a job" and "they are so incompetent thank god a kind soul such as myself is there to help them out."

She'd tell me these one sided stories that paint her in a favorable light, and paints doctors both new and old as moochers and useless manpower who basically use nurses to compensate for their lack of knowledge/skill (basically projecting her own situation onto coworkers)
She'd made fun of a doctor for being in chronic sleep debt and taking antidepressants, calling her weak and that she should be fired for her depression because doctors can't suffer from depression due to having so much better pay than nurses.

She'd do "favors" for people that on paper seem altruistic, but if you think about it she basically pushes back a spot people who legit made an appointment in favor of sick people who could have waited so she could cash in social favors later on. She does this alot. In some cases people she pulls favors for actually do need treatment ASAP, but instead of going trough proper channels she'd purposefully cram them in her own way without proper paperwork so she'd get the social points instead of doing the right thing and filling in paper work to legitimately put people in urgent care. But the second option would waste a day and she wouldn't get the proper credit she craves. If she is confronted for bypassing paperwork and making administration problems, she'd guilt trip people then go home and vent to me how her coworkers are immoral bastards.

Theres more, but I said my peace. As a son of a wannabe doctor nurse I resent these kinds of people.

Edit: I would provide her name and socials, but I will get caught in the crossfire by bad actors. And I don't need more drama in my life. So please respect my decision to keep her incognito.
 
Vibe_Lad said:
Theres more, but I said my peace. As a son of a wannabe doctor nurse I resent these kinds of people.
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Is she an NP/APRN? (Not faulting you telling your story here if she isn't; there's no general nursing thread, for the obvious reason.)

If she isn't, that might be a fun button to press, the next time she gets started. She'll have a set response to you asking "lol why aren't you a doctor then," but you can play the "MIND OF A DOCTOR/HEART OF A NURSE" card and short program lengths and ask why she isn't an NP, unless she doesn't care enough to put herself in a position where she can fix all of these terrible problems.
 
Flourishing Pinecone ❧ said:
I don't know your Mum and I'm very mad about this. Given a lot of us in Beauty Parlour are ageing husks, I'm going to assume she's no spring chicken either.
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Thank you, I appreciate that very much. She’s in her early 70s and suffers without complaint, which somehow makes it worse. I keep wishing she’d hit her limit and go off on one of these NPs that haven’t done anything to help her. She had breast cancer several years ago and I was the one who informed her (after Googling) that the estrogen blocker she takes (Letrozole) causes constipation and stomach pain in many women. A liver scan is highly recommended in such circumstances, but none of these pieces of shit had ever suggested it or even mentioned that her hormones might be causing this.

No more NPs for my family members. We pay for doctors and that’s who should be providing our care. I don’t care if I have to travel to make sure we get seen by qualified doctors. These jokers cannot and should not be entrusted with anyone’s precious life.
 
New (paywalled) article from Bloomberg. Archive.
The Miseducation of America’s Nurse Practitioners
They don’t merely support doctors—NPs increasingly treat patients independently, including in specialty practices and emergency rooms. When they aren’t well trained, the results can be tragic.
By Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz, and Noah Buhayar
July 24, 2024 at 9:00 PM UTC
This is the first part of The Nurse Will See You Now, a series documenting how the increasing reliance on ill-trained nurse practitioners is imperiling US patients.

Looks like they're making the reasonable argument for standards in education and licensure. Should be interesting to see this hit popular consciousness.

I'd guess subsequent articles will go into the pure financial costs; this is an overview and a couple of attention-grabbing "whoops lol" stories.
 
Aunt Carol said:
New (paywalled) article from Bloomberg. Archive.
The Miseducation of America’s Nurse Practitioners
They don’t merely support doctors—NPs increasingly treat patients independently, including in specialty practices and emergency rooms. When they aren’t well trained, the results can be tragic.
By Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz, and Noah Buhayar
July 24, 2024 at 9:00 PM UTC
This is the first part of The Nurse Will See You Now, a series documenting how the increasing reliance on ill-trained nurse practitioners is imperiling US patients.

Looks like they're making the reasonable argument for standards in education and licensure. Should be interesting to see this hit popular consciousness.

I'd guess subsequent articles will go into the pure financial costs; this is an overview and a couple of attention-grabbing "whoops lol" stories.
Click to expand...

bypass paywall for the Bloomberg link: https://archive.is/IUKYA
 
Aunt Carol said:
They don’t merely support doctors—NPs increasingly treat patients independently, including in specialty practices and emergency rooms.
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These bitches really think they can stop the prescription of a patient who's been prescribed a medication since they were 7 years old just because they think the patient might be drug trafficking because their gay ass test doesn't test for the drug in question (but they think it does cuz the drug name sounds similar to an illegal drug). They're out of their fucking minds.
 
Aunt Carol said:
Is she an NP/APRN? (Not faulting you telling your story here if she isn't; there's no general nursing thread, for the obvious reason.)

If she isn't, that might be a fun button to press, the next time she gets started. She'll have a set response to you asking "lol why aren't you a doctor then," but you can play the "MIND OF A DOCTOR/HEART OF A NURSE" card and short program lengths and ask why she isn't an NP, unless she doesn't care enough to put herself in a position where she can fix all of these terrible problems.
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I'll keep this in mind.
 
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