this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Could nurse practitioners fill the primary care gap? (www.theglobeandmail.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by sbv@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Nurse practitioners could help fill the void, advocates for the profession say, if more provinces would adopt policies to integrate them into primary care and pay them fairly for their work. Some physicians’ organizations have pushed back against that approach, arguing that NPs don’t have as much training or education as family doctors and therefore should only be funded publicly when they’re embedded in interdisciplinary teams with MDs.

Aren't these the same organizations that have been dragging their feet on recognizing foreign credentials?

I've been seeing a nurse practitioner for the last couple of years. So far, she's provided the same level of care I'm used to from family doctors: prescriptions, forwarding me to specialists when appropriate, providing the usual advice during checkups. It's fine.

https://archive.is/PkAdd

Edit: took out my grumbly summary, since our healthcare spending seems to be middle of the pack, compared to peer countries.

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[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why not simply pay GPs a decent wage, thereby attracting more people into the industry?

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The issue is they pay specialists grossly unreasonable wages, so thats where all the 2nd+ generation med students who have the best chamce at leaping over all of the arbitrary hurdles to med achool acceptance set their sights.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Wages are not a zero-sum issue. Raise the wages of GPs, and that gap narrows. With a narrower gap, fewer students will try to hop it, as the benefits are less. Or in other words, it becomes easier and more profitable to be a GP.

There is no reason why specialist wages need to be eviscerated. You can have high wages for both specialists and GPs. And in the end, we need plenty of people going into both.

[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There is no reason why specialist wages need to be eviscerated

Yes, there is. We pay specialists fuck-you money, and enable a rigid social hierarchy within a profession that exists to help others.

It's already questionable that GPs are underpaid. Overworked, sure, but they already make signidicantly more than the median income, and well above a living wage, in a society where many work twice as long and just as hard for peanuts.

As a society, we don't need to be enabling the structural narcisim of medical specialists with kingly wages. It's a social sickness.

If specialists want to out-earn the rest of us by a factor of 5 or more, maybe they should work 5 or more jobs.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

Wow, that is one of the most bleedingly ignorant things I have read in a damn long time.