> There are plenty of things I'd go to a doctor for even if they had 90% less medical training. As mentioned below, PAs and NPs already do a lot of these task

> There are plenty of things I'd go to a doctor for even if they had 90% less medical training. As mentioned below, PAs and NPs already do a lot of these tasks. However, the big value-add I see in MDs as opposed to seeing NPs or PAs with problems is that they have the depth and breadth of training to have first-hand experience with the exceptions to normal circumstances. The standard medical mantra of "if you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras" works great for normal scenarios. If there actually is a zebra situation, though, I have far more faith in professionals with extensive clinical training at identifying those situations. > Those two items are probably 80% of the reason anyone I know goes to a doctor. Regarding prescriptions, this may be blind faith in regulatory institutions, but I assume that there is a reason that mostly-safe drugs require a prescription. If the criteria for prescription refills or simple procedures doesn't require the full breadth/depth of clinical training, though, then NPs and PAs already exist to fill that role. > We could easily suck up the worlds surgeons because we pay so much more. I'd argue that this is an explicit non-goal. We don't want to attract the most surgeons/doctors, we want the surgeons/doctors we have to be trained and practiced to an extremely high bar. You're definitely right that there are lots of scenarios which don't require this extremely high bar, and that's the reason why not all medical personnel are doctors. Nurses and physician assistants play a critical role in healthcare specifically because they can tackle those 80% of cases you mentioned, but the way around this isn't to dilute the training of medical doctors, it's to delegate the work that's better performed by others to those others.