All relationships change or evolve over time. And for better or worse, that is a fact of life. Case in point, a good example of that is our very own inter-professional association with our physician colleagues; one which has undergone and continues to undergo some changes even today. Naturally many factors play into this situation.
Clearly, speaking of factors one can see Advanced Practice Providers SOP ( scope of practice ) has been evolving too in recent years. Therefore, as time has progressed, one can see our interdependent association has lessened during these times. In fact, professionally speaking we are more autonomous these days than we were in the early days as practicing delegated clinicians. Evidence of this advancement can be seen in recently passed legislative updates nationwide. Full Practice Authority with NPs and Optimum Team Practices are the prime examples that come to mind when one sees the evolvement of our scope of practice, for both, NPs and PAs respectively..
But, this recognition has come with a price along with an increasing slanderous backlash trend from multiple physician associations and the very own physician community. Particularly the AMA being one of the most vocal & unsupportive organizations of all of them.
So why is this phenomenon more noticeable these days to the advanced practice providers community?
Simple, our past paternalistic association with our former paternalistic colleagues mindset has been slowly dismantled and eroded to the point that nowadays patient care is no longer physician-centric as it used to be in the old days. Much to their chagrin, the updated model of team-based medicine has emerged in many respects as more Advanced Practice Providers-friendly if not downright nursing-centric. Obviously, this industry inclusive move has drawn a wedge between physician and non-physician providers. The displacement of their past industry power has shaken the longstanding traditional hierarchical view of the antiquated system. Thus, apparently this subtle status displacement has intensified and fueled their resentment and professional insecurities to the point of openly disparaging and criticizing our quality patient care outcomes very openly. Hence, the daily misledia continues to inaccurately and @ times deceitfully advance biased stories. These half-truths of their irresponsible reporting at times subtlety cloaked in the form or the guise of patient safety concerns are fundamentally wrong when hypocritically shown to the medical consumer.
Sadly, this disturbing painted picture of sub-par care provided by APPs is nothing more than a negative discrediting rhetoric & projected/transferred professional insecurities of their own.
