A Nurse Practitioner's View

Lately, it seems there is ratcheted up rhetoric on nurse practitioner practice making us prime targets for all things anti-NP. The WSJ reports on a study that examined the prescribing habits of NPs and whether there is Pharma influence on those habits. The study found that of the 263 surveyed NP respondents, 93% reported that free gifts had no effect on their likelihood to prescribe the medication that was being detailed by the representative. The study concludes that since many NPs had regular contacts with these reps in the form of face to face and industry backed lunches/conferences, there could be a degree of subconscious influence on prescribing habits - findings that are similar to prescribing habits of our physician colleagues. As you can see in the comments section that follows the story on the WSJ, some are using this study to once again attack NP practice. The comments are laughable as the insinuation is that NPs aren't really educated on pharmacotherapy and therefo...

Nurse Practitioners in Florida currently cannot write prescriptions for controlled substances (47 states currently allow NPs to prescribe these). One can understand the fear that having more prescribers can potentially lead to more abuse. However, that is a very narrow view and really doesn't help the thousands of patients NPs are seeing every day in Florida. What I find most disturbing about this article is (R) Senator Thad Altman's comments. He is quoted as saying: "We need to protect the practice of medicine," Altman said. By sharing tasks that used to be solely the domain of doctors, who have the highest level of training among health care professionals, "it's discouraging people from going through the vigor of becoming a physician." Why must this be a MD vs. NP issue!?! After all, we now consider "pain" as the fifth vital sign. For us to not adequately address pain, severely inhibits practice and our patients are the one's suffering...