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

[eternal dog mongler]

It sucks for them that the people making the hiring decisions figured out that they could hire people for cheaper to perform the same essential tasks that doctors do, such as misdiagnosing simple medical conditions and accusing people of wanting pain meds.

NPs aren't even all that much cheaper. It's just that patients tend to have a better time with NPs because they sling dope from the pyx with no reservations.

Working in medicine isn't easy and I just assume everyone's trying their best.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

I have a friend whose mother was a nurse who retired in her mid sixties a few years ago. One of the few times I heard her speak about her work was about the younger crowd of nurses.

She was furious because of the danger they were to patients:

1. They were constantly trying to take over duties that they were not trained for
2. They were constantly egged on by the administration and others with a sort of 'you go girl!' or don't let any sexist tell you aren't as smart as that white male veteran doctor
3. And that when they do fuck up, their mistakes are covered up because of 2

I know there are other aspects such as the drive to find ways to cut costs and not all nurses are female, but I came away from her talks about current year nurses with a desire to have some sort of "I do not authorize NP care" type medical card in my wallet.

Edit:
One more thing I remember is she mentioned that when she would confront these new generation of nurses about their dangerous attempts to be treated like doctors and why they didn't go to the full med school path to become doctors they would respond that they didn't feel the need to. And the new medical workplace narrative was essentially telling them they didn't need to.

Years later it struck me that was one of the key lessons of the 'wage gap' myth. The women who constantly push that lie in reality just want to be paid the same as men who put in more hours than they do, have years more training than they do, have a large amount of more responsibility than they do. They want to take part time jobs, leave when it is convenient for them, not have any serious responsibility, but still make the same amount of money as the men at the company who have spent their entire life with their faces in tech books and working until midnight while the female employees are home in bed watching Lifetime or posting on social media about 'muh wage gap'.

This sounds a lot like my mom, only the bullshit pushed her into early retirement. She started her nursing career in the mid-late 80s and became an RN. Gradually she saw all the bullshit with new nurses over time, among all the other problems with the medical industry that reared their heads over that time. She was totally burned out by the mid 00s and left.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

This sounds a lot like my mom, only the bullshit pushed her into early retirement. She started her nursing career in the mid-late 80s and became an RN. Gradually she saw all the bullshit with new nurses over time, among all the other problems with the medical industry that reared their heads over that time. She was totally burned out by the mid 00s and left.

This isn't too surprising. Healthcare in general started turning into this customer service profession starting in about the late 90s. Now we got HCAHPS and Press Ganey to worry about.

Retaining nurses is a genuine problem. I'm friends with an internist who works med/surg in a medium-sized hospital in the southern US and the most senior nurse they have on the floor has been working for a whole 18 months.

ICU nurses develop PTSD at the same rate as military veterans who experienced combat so that's also something. We need to fix this shit somehow.

 

[behindyourightnow]

NPs aren't even all that much cheaper. It's just that patients tend to have a better time with NPs because they sling dope from the pyx with no reservations.

I don't see a problem here

 

[Buer]

This isn't too surprising. Healthcare in general started turning into this customer service profession starting in about the late 90s. Now we got HCAHPS and Press Ganey to worry about.

Retaining nurses is a genuine problem. I'm friends with an internist who works med/surg in a medium-sized hospital in the southern US and the most senior nurse they have on the floor has been working for a whole 18 months.

ICU nurses develop PTSD at the same rate as military veterans who experienced combat so that's also something. We need to fix this shit somehow.

Has this always been a problem or is it just because we're currently in a pandemic that it's so bad? I heard some women become nurses so they can raise a family because of how the hours are(their words). I wonder if that might have something to do with it. I did see a thread on reddit that talked about a nurse wanting to quit nursing and becoming a stripper because her job made her anxiety go through the roof. Some women(and men) just aren't cut out for nursing it seems. Though I think the hospital is probably mostly to blame if there's a low retention rate.
Here's the thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nurse/comments/nra5dt/i_cant_afford_to_quit_nursing/

And here's another one about the nursing shortage:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/n98rah/dont_say_theres_a_nursing_shortage/

Here's one person's take from that thread:

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Has this always been a problem or is it just because we're currently in a pandemic that it's so bad? I heard some women become nurses so they can raise a family because of how the hours are(their words). I wonder if that might have something to do with it.

It was a problem before COVID and COVID just made it worse.

I have no idea how someone could think nursing hours are good for raising a family. It's mostly like it's an easy thing to get into cheaply that pays fairly well. Get your ASN at a community college and work for a nursing home that will pay for your BSN, immediately leave there and work for a hospital that will pay for your DNP. Certify as an PMHNP (they get paid more than I do for real.) This is a very very good career path.

The actual hours though, uh...you're not gonna see your kids for a while.