[Magdalen] health care...

[Jay Weigel]

I read an article yesterday that stated that diabetics actually do better
under the care of nurse practitioners than they do under doctors' care.
There were a  number of reasons given, but the main ones were, IIRC, the
NPs' rigorous CE requirements and their relatively easy availability. Score
one for our side!

My longtime friend Kim became an NP last year after having been an RN for
one year longer than I have. She's several years younger than I am but our
kids are close in age and  we met when they were in preschool. We went to
nursing school together but she was a year ahead of me. Then she went into
ICU and from there to ER. For awhile she had an interesting stint as a
parish nurse at a humongous UMC church in Knoxville where part of her
practice was with homeless individuals. We had kind of lost contact at that
point so I didn't get to hear much about that. Then she had health problems
and had to quit working but used the time advantageously to further her
education, BSN and now MSN. She works at a clinic in Morgan County, TN,
which is in a relatively poor area, and loves it.

I see NPs whenever I go to urgent care, which may be a couple of times a
year if I can't get in to see my regular doc. I'm always impressed by the
ones at the center where I go. I had quite a discussion with the one I saw
last time when I went in with shingles. We are both somewhat distressed by
the new trend in NPs, who go straight on through school with NO nursing
experience whatever outside school. She said they are "all theory and don't
know patients" because unlike doctors they have no residency requirements.
She thinks, and I agree, that no one ought to be admitted to an NP program
without at least 5 years of bedside nursing experience.

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 9:02 AM, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am remembering a friend who was fiercely loyal to her doctor, an elderly
> courtly practitoner who clearly wasn't up to date on his CEs. She developed
> diabetes in her late seventies and he told her to go to the drug store to
> get some test strips. She dutifully went, and the pharmacist regarded her
> with shocked expression.
> "we haven't stocked those in twenty years!"
>
> In team practice, everybody's up to date on their CEs ... or else. And they
> can count on excellent office support, without the bother of hiring,
> training, firing, a huge task for physicians in private practice. (In some
> ways medical schools, like seminaries, do not train for the crappy but very
> real demands of the job).
>
> For the most part I see nurses. I actually think nurses are better at
> quick evaluation than physicians are, and they're alot easier to work with,
> too. But there are always physicians roaming around for consult (my dental
> practice runs in much the same way).
> -M
>
> On Wednesday, October 21, 2015, Roger Stokes <
> roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > This side of the pond that is normal.  We are registered with a
> particular
> > doctor but can see any of the team.  This reduces the pressure on the
> > individual doctor because they can actually get some time off.  The team
> > also offers a degree of peer supervision.  The wisdom of that, and what
> led
> > to more pressure on government to do away with single doctor practices,
> was
> > seen in the case of Harold Shipman who is believed to have killed about
> 250
> > of his patients.
> >
> >
>