While that might enhance the quality of education and training, do we really need that when numerous studies have shown PAs and NPs provide care equivalent to physicians’? It really gets down to the everlasting question PAs and NPs face from patients: “When will you be a doctor?”
My answer is: When they go to medical school, complete residency training, and are licensed by their state. The only alternative I see is to semantically spin the term doctor with practitioner and to do so in the public’s mind. Then if you are a doctor NP, doctor PA, or doctor MD/DO, it won’t matter—they’ll all just be providers.
There are now many people on the medical team who have doctoral degrees (physical therapists, audiologists, pharmacists) with more to come. The lesson learned is that it’s critically important for us to appropriately identify ourselves as clinicians without causing confusion and conflict for our patients. This latter point, as we already know, has legal implications.
Whether PAs and NPs should have doctoral degrees is a question that has been and will continue to be vetted in forums industry-wide. This discussion, albeit a bit tongue-in-cheek, is really about patients and their perceptions of what their health care professionals are or should be.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Please e-mail me at PAeditor@qhc.com.