Residences are crucial for actual clinical learning, it's more developmental than medical school which is a broad base for understanding physiology. Most doctor

Residences are crucial for actual clinical learning, it's more developmental than medical school which is a broad base for understanding physiology. Most doctors at teaching programs will tell you: even 3rd-year med students barely know a thing. Could they likely do the same tasks as first-year NPs who went straight from RN to NP school without any clinical experience? Yes, probably, but they almost certainly would have the same vulnerability NPs do: they don't have anywhere close to the same understanding of the physiology critical for decision-making outside of typical cases or considering interactions of different indicators. That said, I do think there's probably more of a role for some graduating med students than we use now. I don't think they need a 3-year residency to enable them for many general practitioner duties particularly in rural settings where the patient load is less, the pay is likely less, but the cases are more homogenous.