Tension between The AAPA and the AMA as well as many other physician groups can be expected to escalate in the coming years. Over the past several years the physician community and the PA/NP Communities have been jousting with each other & at odds over the Scope of Practice advancement sought by AAPs throughout the country. Clearly, both groups are opposed to each other’s agenda. This entrenched philosophical quagmire is deeply rooted in misunderstandings, misconceptions, and even mischaracterizations that continue to this day.
Many physicians' views of nonphysician providers are not very flattering ones. In fact, and currently, they are seeking to discredit this class of highly trained healthcare professionals by portraying them as unruly, deceitful unsubordinates seeking to replace physicians with inferiorly trained clinicians. Thus, claiming this places patients at medical risk given the short & inadequate training in their oftentimes misinformed views of APPs training.
Conversely, APPs see their counterparts as pompous and/or abusive team leaders. They rapidly claim and point out that physicians’ disdain for APPs is palpable if not visible in many circumstances. Thus, creating difficult interprofessional dynamics between both groups. Sometimes it is not uncommon to see animosity or acrimonious interactions between the two groups erupt on various social media platforms.
Much to their chagrin, APPs are not only continuing to evolve but also assume greater bedside clinical responsibilities. Traditionally part of the physician’s patriarchal domain in the marketplace has been decreasing. Therefore this is seen by them as the ultimate professional encroachment & displacement. This threat is unfathomable in their minds. The fact, that PAs/NPs/CRNAs don't feel the need to be subservient practitioners to the past once-revered physician, this stance has not only exacerbated the relationship, but it also has contributed significantly to their interprofessional strain on many fronts.
So, given the unresolved strained relations between both groups, the question becomes this: can advanced practice providers and physicians come to terms with working collaboratively side by side with such differing interprofessional practice perspectives? But more importantly, can it be salvaged? restored?
For physicians, the bottom line is they see themselves “as the perennial captain of the ship”. For many of them, is untenable to accept nonphysician providers as associates as shown & evidenced in the many nonsupportive expressed opinions or official stances declared by their many specialty organizations through the years in various media or social platforms.
Likewise, nonphysician providers feel unless the physician/medical community comes to terms with acknowledging their growing presence and role (raised professional status) in the healthcare landscape, it will remain an impasse.
One thing is certain– if both groups fail to move beyond & come to terms, then the practice of medicine is going to be a miserable one for all involved stakeholders…including patients since neither group wants to concede acknowledgment to the other.
We can only hope this quagmire doesn’t remain in perpetuity. But, only time will tell…
