The proliferation of midlevels is pretty controversial (think Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants etc). Insurance companies and hospitals use them to save money in salary. Doctors are worried about the future of their profession and the scope creep of midlevel roles in medicine. All valid concerns.
My problem is the way each group talks about each other. It is straight venom in the group chats and (from what I can tell) comment section. A large number of doctors are very vocal about their belief that midlevel healthcare providers should not exist. This disrespect trickles down to the techs as well; there is just an inherent ‘I am better than you attitude’ that creates such a toxic work environment.
To the doctors that have these feelings… imagine your workload without them. You don’t respect the midlevels… imagine doing everything they do plus what you are doing already. DO IT YOURSELF. That’s the world without midlevels and techs. You can’t be better than them if your job can’t function without them. The TRUTH is doctors haven’t kept up with the surging demand in healthcare and that is only growing as we get older. There aren’t enough of you to meet the needs of our society. There aren’t enough spots in med school or residencies… Doctors have simply not kept up and that has been true for decades. Midlevels only exist because doctors dropped the ball. Doctors themselves crap on the family medicine residency… You don’t even respect your own.
Since DOCTORS physically CANNOT keep up with demand they cannot do it themselves. If you can’t do it yourself… keep your toxic opinions out of the workplace and to yourself… doctors drove nurses to strike and unionize… maybe don’t do that to the midlevels as well. Otherwise you won’t have to imagine it… you’ll live it and WE WILL ALL SUFFER. Stop fighting. Grow up. We the patients don’t care about your pissing match… we just want to be seen and treated.
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What?
This seems like an unpopular opinion that will resonate with a very specific audience only.
Lol. I do medical interpretation but I would’ve never thought this was a thing.
So, you’re telling me these guys make way more money than I do AND complain about having back ups? 😂
Sounds like someone’s still bitter they didn’t get accepted into med school
There is a real shortage of doctors where I live. Having a family doctor is at this point little more than dream. Finding a good doctor on top of that is even harder.
You think “do it yourself” is a big own, but that’s life for alot of people. It’s a broken system by design. Here in Ontario Doug Ford wants to make our healthcare system fail so he can get those kickbacks as he brings in privatization.
The real problem is people don’t direct their anger in the right direction. Which is a pity…
NP:s are a very new thing here in Sweden and obviously a lot of doctors are confused about the role a NP would play on their floor. So yeah, obviously there are some who vehemently oppose this, some who are carefully skeptical and some who are genuinely interested in the idea. I’ve always assumed it was less controversial where it was a more common occurrence.
However there will always be pissing matches where traditional hierarchies are broken down and where the tasks of different professions overlap somewhat.
That said I absolutely agree a lot of doctors are extremely resistant to other professions intruding on their territory and sometimes kling on to even mundane tasks that obviously require no medical degree to do. This applies to a lot of nursing tasks as well in my opinion.
Don’t have NPs where I work, and my impression is they’re the most frowned upon midlevel.
EDIT: I should say rather I haven’t worked with many NPs directly. When they do come up, it’s been mixed bag of “lifesaver in underserved remote area” and “this person doesn’t know the first things about the medications they’re prescribing”.
But every PA I’ve worked with has done incredible work to cut down on (and I mean no shade saying this) low acuity and/or “scut work” and stayed within their scope, which is to do noncritical acuity physician things with physician oversight. Nothing but good things from personal experience.
Also it’s no secret doctors engage in gatekeeping to 1) keep quality of care standards, and 2) of course not dilute their reimbursement rates and professional prestige. I can tell you that as a doctor, lmao. Is it a problem. I don’t know, pros and cons.
The answer is to incentivize more doctors. NPs and the like are at best a stopgap. This should be extremely temporary (5-6 yrs) in a well run society.