A Nurse Practitioner's View

Here is an article from NY's Newsday about NP practice and the goal towards the elimination of statutory collaboration in New York. It's a fairly predictable piece with the typical opposition from the organized medicine playbook (How many times do we have to see "If they want to play doctor, they should go t o medical school" in print? Seriously). Nonetheless, thriving NP practices are mentioned and show the significant impact that NPs are making in the lives of patients and in the health care system. I will mention it again as I've done countless times in my blog: NPs do not want to replace physicians and are NOT looking to change scope of practice (The presence of a collaborative agreement or not will have no impact on the quality of care I deliver but not having one in place simply renders me unemployed). I do hope that the vocal opposition eventually understand this so that we may begin to deliver care that is truly patient centered. UPDATE: I did something ...

Today's Newsday featured an article that included attributes to look for when choosing a primary care physician (I added the word "provider" :-). Long Island Nurse Practitioner Peggy O'Donnell was interviewed for the article and added some sound advice: "Certainly you want somebody who's not going to only speak in lay language but do reflective listening. You really have to have someone who hears what you're saying to them." There are many practical and common sense tips for patients. Clinicians should also be able to reflect on the advice from the article. It serves as a great reality check for us to ensure that we are properly in touch with our patients' reasonable questions and concerns.