Career Changer

I will tell you my personal experience. I am not a nurse or nursing student. I am a pre-medicine student at UC-Berk. I once thought I would go into family medicine as a physician so I contacted the people in charge at my university of student internships and they put me in touch with with a network of clinics (urgent care / family practice. I observed NPs and MDs at their best best and from my own observations made the decision that family practice was not complicated enough - so to speak - and the MDs deligated the NPs to do most everything from stiching to setting fractures. So naturally I thought this is nurse work. I saw NPs make skilled decisions that saved lives.

To say that Nurses learn from shadowing Dr.s, in my opinion, is well..... an oxymoron. Shadowing is what residents do. Seeing what your mentor would do and taking that on in your practice. From my research, I have concluded that NPs are totally competent to have private practice in pediatrics, OB/GYN, mental health, family practice, geriatrics, and acute care. And not to spar with you because I think that what you are doing is great and I praise you for the effort and time you are willing to put in to help your pts. and our fellow man, but PAs are very sneaky in this sense. Several PAs employ primary care physicians but not physically. They basically buy their 'permission' and then run their own family clinics in several aspects of medicine. I have shadowed a PA in Cali that is a Pediatric PA and yes he is very good but to say that PAs stay in their scope is terribly unjustified.

PAs find ways to slither around the laws ect. I am not anti-PA as it may seem. I think that they are excellent and I commend them for what they do everyday. They save lives and make them better for alot of people.

Doctors of Optometry are needed but in relevance to your comment I was actually misdiagnosed by 2 ODs in the same complex. The MD told me (who is a friend) ODs have a little scheme to make some $$$ by Rx contacts for people who dont really need them. But there are crooks in every profession and always will be.

I am interested to know your case about your misdiagnoses by the NP, could you relay your experience to me. (ie your symptoms, onset, NPs diagnoses - Rx, ect) I would really appreciate it.

Take care. Hope to hear from you soon