5 ms·

My wife is an RN. She thinks that credentialism is definitely an issue (escalating requirements are pushing non-bachelors RNs out of the market and reducing the

My wife is an RN. She thinks that credentialism is definitely an issue (escalating requirements are pushing non-bachelors RNs out of the market and reducing the scope of work that assistants can do). However, it's also true that nurses who make mistakes kill people (or fail to keep them alive). You can train almost anyone for a retail or delivery job in a few days, and the consequences of gross incompetence are modest. Personally I think we need to dramatically reduce credentialism in health care, but we have to be willing to tolerate the occasional horror story that seems like it could be fixed by more education.

pubby 7y ago
Funny, as a patient I prefer the opposite. Higher educated nurses tend to play doctor, but I can't trust their opinion because they aren't real doctors. It comes at the cost of them listening poorly, for they carry the confidence of their degree.
- baq 7y ago
  it isn't surprising that a nurse of 5 years on the post knows better than a doctor a year out of university because there's literally no reason she wouldn't. source: nurse significant other having to tell better-paid (usually by a lot) newbie doctors what to do on the job
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    All frontline careers have that problem.
- disabled 7y ago
  There really are some amazing nurses and nurse practitioners out there. I am unhealthy and I have at least 1 medical appointment per week. I am literally indifferent to having a nurse practitioner or a medical doctor as my care provider. Anyways, my endocrinologist is a nurse practitioner with a masters degree. I have a very rare autoimmune neurological disease, that affects my peripheral nervous system, that was initially blamed on type 1 diabetes complications. In fact, its onset was so insidious that it looked just like "diabetes complications." My endocrinologist (you know, the nurse practitioner with a masters degree) sent my blood to the only lab in the US that tests for the disease I have...and it came back positive. The rest is really history, and now I am getting proper treatment for it.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>but we have to be willing to tolerate the occasional horror story that seems like it could be fixed by more education. That's a complete non-starter in this day and age though. "Just one life" and all that crap. It's simply not possible to float the idea that taking on more risk (by employing less trained nurses) in order to bring some benefit to society (more nurse-hours available) may have an overall net benefit to society without be labeled a baby murderer.
isostatic 7y ago
> You can train almost anyone for a retail or delivery job in a few days, and the consequences of gross incompetence are modest. And we train taxi drivers, and even lorry drivers, in a few days

pubby 7y ago

Funny, as a patient I prefer the opposite. Higher educated nurses tend to play doctor, but I can't trust their opinion because they aren't real doctors. It comes at the cost of them listening poorly, for they carry the confidence of their degree.

baq 7y ago
it isn't surprising that a nurse of 5 years on the post knows better than a doctor a year out of university because there's literally no reason she wouldn't. source: nurse significant other having to tell better-paid (usually by a lot) newbie doctors what to do on the job
- pnutjam 7y ago
  All frontline careers have that problem.
disabled 7y ago
There really are some amazing nurses and nurse practitioners out there. I am unhealthy and I have at least 1 medical appointment per week. I am literally indifferent to having a nurse practitioner or a medical doctor as my care provider. Anyways, my endocrinologist is a nurse practitioner with a masters degree. I have a very rare autoimmune neurological disease, that affects my peripheral nervous system, that was initially blamed on type 1 diabetes complications. In fact, its onset was so insidious that it looked just like "diabetes complications." My endocrinologist (you know, the nurse practitioner with a masters degree) sent my blood to the only lab in the US that tests for the disease I have...and it came back positive. The rest is really history, and now I am getting proper treatment for it.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>but we have to be willing to tolerate the occasional horror story that seems like it could be fixed by more education. That's a complete non-starter in this day and age though. "Just one life" and all that crap. It's simply not possible to float the idea that taking on more risk (by employing less trained nurses) in order to bring some benefit to society (more nurse-hours available) may have an overall net benefit to society without be labeled a baby murderer.

isostatic 7y ago

> You can train almost anyone for a retail or delivery job in a few days, and the consequences of gross incompetence are modest. And we train taxi drivers, and even lorry drivers, in a few days