One of the career advances most discouraged seems to be the transition from nurse to doctor. There may be a number of reasons why society seems to offer the most resistance to the concept but in the end, the reality is just this. Nurses really do make the best doctors and here’s why.
Nurses Have Plenty of Practice with Their Beside Manner
The biggest complaint you’ll ever hear is that a doctor has a terrible bedside manner. Even if he is in private practice and you’ve never seen him in a hospital setting, if he lacks communication skills or is short with you because ‘his time is valuable,’ you will say he or she has an absolutely terrible bedside manner. Nurses, on the other hand, deal with patients on a one-to-one basis and are the ones who actually hear what the patient is saying.
Nurses Are Well Qualified to Be Healthcare Advisors
Nurses take the initial assessment and chart any details that are forthcoming. Doctors walk in the room, pick up the chart and begin diagnosing, often without exchanging any words other than to ask if this hurts or that hurts when prodding areas of a complaint as referenced on the chart. It took the nurse to figure out what the patient is really there for and to get them to open up enough to talk about it! While a nurse pursuing a doctor of nursing practice won’t exactly be practicing as a doctor, he or she will often be qualified to be on a health care advisory panel looking at changes that need to be made in patient care.
RELATED ARTICLE: Conditions And Patient Opinions: Why Patients Seek Second Opinions
Plenty of Hands-on Experience
While it isn’t always the case, doctors typically spend so much of their adult life studying that they don’t really have any hands-on experience other than their internship prior to working in the field. Nurses, on the other hand, work on the floor with patients for a time before deciding to go down the R.N. to the M.D. path. Few nurses actually become doctors, many that do want to rise up the ranks of the healthcare professionals choose to pursue a graduate nursing degree instead. However, those that do become doctors, not only communicate better with patients but also communicate better with their own nursing staff when they have one. Without ever having walked in the shoes of a nurse, many doctors simply don’t appreciate all the hard work they do to make the patient as comfortable as possible. It has been said that doctors treat illnesses while nurses treat patients.
When studying for a doctor of nursing practice online degree, perhaps at a grad nursing school in PA, a nurse won’t be studying to be a doctor but will have the honor of having an advanced degree that places them in a position to affect healthcare changes that need to be made. Improving patient care is a huge focus within the medical profession today and that’s why there is a need for more nurses to step up to the plate and share what they know. Having been on the front lines, so to speak, nurses know what patients expect from healthcare and the best way to improve the system from the inside is to listen to those who have first spent their time listening – that would be nurses. This is why they make the best doctors – they listen!
Disclosure Policy:
This blog is a collaborative blog written by a group of individuals. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content. The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites, and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content will always be identified.
