In 2021 & 2022, one thing was & is becoming clear: the anti-PA rhetoric is becoming louder & louder by the minute as seen by the American Medical Association (AMA) back in November 2020, entitled “ #stop scope creep... because patient safety isn’t a game”. Also, ACEP ( The American College of Emergency Physicians), and AFPPA ( The American Family Practice Physicians Association are the last physician communities to go public with this agenda. These Physician groups are morally bankrupt since their campaigns essentially seek to stall or halt the evolutionary progression of the scope of practice of Advanced Practice Providers ( APPs), mainly Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Nurse Midwives and CRNAs.
Healthcare is evolving, not to mention nowadays is a team effort, and all members of the team play a vital part in the care of the patient. In my opinion, most advanced practice providers are not seeking to replace the physician, nor are anti-physicians’ per se, but rather be a true physician extender. And yes, I/we can assure the medical community as well as the patient community we know our role as well as our limitations. Sadly, but surely, there will always be cavalier advanced practice providers out there, but then again they are also seen in many other healthcare professions & physicians too.
The position of the AMA, Physicians for patient protection and the authors of the book Patients at Risk postulate that patients deserve care led by physicians - the most highly educated, trained and skilled medical health professionals. In fact, rest assured The Advanced Practice Providers Community do not disagree nor dispute with this premise.
However, what this author/we object and disagree with is their hypocritical & disingenuous fear-mongering media campaign of misinformation to the American Healthcare consumer. They basically seek to build & present their skewed argument on untruthful statements about the safety of the health care services provided by us.
This fomented inter-professional divisions of curtailing the modernization of PA practice at the legislative level should be viewed and considered a significant barrier to the increasing and facilitation of healthcare access to our fellow Americans in an already fragmented healthcare industry. But make no mistake, right now is a critical time to put these turf battles to rest. Now is the time to place inter-professional political ideologies or differences aside for the common good & betterment of a siloed industry. As a group of healthcare professionals, we should & need to stop demonizing, disenfranchising or canceling other Healthcare Kindred professions.
It's time for them to stop seeking to score political points with partisan constituents by marketing disinformation to the general public. Quite frankly in my view, this hypocritical industry practice model is very short-sighted, professionally divisive,if not completely unconscionably unsustainable.
