the Muse, RN

This weekend at work, I overheard a physician actually verbalize the following to a physician colleague in reference to an amazingly skilled bedside nurse :

If she’s so smart, why isn’t she a doctor?

Yes, Friends, that was a true statement spoken aloud in the United States of America by a real doctor in 2010.

My first thought was:

Duh-uhhh….BECAUSE she is so smart, Dip-wad.

My second through millionth thoughts centered around this:
the great majority of physician-think continues to be -

1) nurses are stupid – otherwise we’d be doctors

2) nurses are not independent practitioners of their own realms with patient responsibilities that contribute immensely to the whole of health maintenance and healing of the populace (without which the whole would be lacking) and

3) nurses remain substandard extensions of doctor’s leadership and authority.

This line of musing led to the consideration of the continued disrespect and dismissal of Advance Practice Nurses versus the ridiculous credibility given to physician assistants.  I mean, really … APNs with 3, 5, 10, 20 years of direct patient care experience and graduate nursing educations are dissed for a PA with a freakin’ bachelor’s degree in whatever and 2 year degree in physician assisting and NO meaningful patient care experience?

Yes.

Yes they are.

And APN’s are decidedly and monetarily short-changed by the medical system exclusively because their advance degree was obtained from a school of NURSING and their license to practice is ordained by a board of NURSING.

That’s crap, Nurses.

The time has come to play a different game.

If it takes 2 years of full-time, year-round education to prepare for an Advance Practice exam and certification, push it to 3 years and knock-out a degree in Medicine.

Truly!

No, no, no …listen for a minute.

The schools of medicine are no more rigorous or esteemed than our own halls of graduate nursing – just look at the fresh out-of-school residents and you can see that.  Their tutelage is less than our own amazingly brilliant education in such areas as holistic patient care and patient/family communication and community health planning/service.

BUT, their DEGREE – that precious “MD” – has been exalted to levels that a degree in nursing just cannot reach in today’s paradigm.  Everyone (but us) believes Nurses are climbing an entirely different mountain of healthcare while we see ourselves as climbing the exact same mountain – just the other side of it.  But, to make matters worse, in the minds of the public-at-large, the politicians, healthcare administrators and the doctors themselves, not only are Nurses scaling a different mountain, it is one of inferior size and shape and lies directly on a fault line in the shadow of the physicians’ mountain – destined to collapse into the abyss at any moment.

Time to stop the madness.

Hear ye! Hear ye! O’ Grand Edifices of Medicine!

We are going to apply en mass to your schools
for our graduate degrees!

We are going to test out of
your first year of basic medical education!

We are going to excel past your wildest dreams
in our 2nd, 3rd and 4th years!

We are going to graduate with honors!

We are going to practice General Medicine
without participating in your Residency Programs!

We are going to change everything you & the public
hold true about medicine and nursing!

We are going to kickstart the snowball of change
in the provision of healthcare in this country
to the way it needs to be -
patient focused and wellness driven!

And….we are going to do it with your degree.

“RN, MD” will truly be the most respected designation a practitioner of healthcare can possess.

It is time.

_________________
With love,
the Muse, RN