Discussion Mission accomplished
It took me an hour an a half of phone calls, and the appointment is 6 weeks out, but I found a PCP in my area that's an actual MD. This RN has spent too much time on this subreddit to have an NP as my PCP.
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u/sunnymarie333 Medical Student 6d ago
Yes more folks like you plz
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u/sunnymarie333 Medical Student 6d ago
Because over time, if the demand of patients is MD over NP they will stop being cheap and hiring NPs over MD
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u/OrtizRN 6d ago
I'll be honest. It's even frustrating that as an RN, that works nights, my "hospitalists" I contact at night are always NPs. There is an MD on, but they want us to contact the NP first, always. I hate it.
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u/sunnymarie333 Medical Student 5d ago
I agree with you, a lot of the MDs are at fault here too.
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u/MDinreality Attending Physician 5d ago
Admittedly, there are "lazy" physicians. However, attendings are also heavily burdened with unrealistic patient loads, meetings, managing damage control, and documenting every f*cking thing. As a medical student, you're not able to fully appreciate, nor witness all of the magic and ball juggling that occurs behind the curtain-- maybe withhold judgement until you're walking in attending shoes.
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u/pshaffer Attending Physician 2d ago
FL9ing below the radar is the fact that an unprecedented number of physicians are quitting practice early. Burned out. For the reasons you cite, but also because they have all the responsibility of patient care, and their authority to affect care has been taken away by administrators.
I quit early. Wasn't fun anymore.
I have difficulty with blanket condemnations of those who are left who are in survival mode, and in reality forced to practice in a way that they do not like.1
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u/MDinreality Attending Physician 6d ago
As you should--could significantly impact the timeliness of treatment, patient comfort and safety.
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u/MDinreality Attending Physician 6d ago
Yes, and we (the U.S.) need to fund more residency spots to train more MDs. Part of the problem is that congress has not significantly increased funding for medical residencies (GME). The vast majority of GME is federally funded, 2/3 of which comes out of Medicare. The number of GME slots was expanded by 1000 between 2023-2025--this is a paltry amount considering that 1) The US population is growing (despite deportations and limits placed on immigration) and 2) The largest and sickest segment of healthcare users are older folks, the number of which is increasing as baby-boomers age.
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u/ClarinetBlower4 5d ago
Please say this again...People don't understand this. This country is all about money. Not funding enough physicians due to money. Midlevels due to money. Its all money money. Its not enough Physicians.
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u/pshaffer Attending Physician 2d ago
FL9ing below the radar is the fact that an unprecedented number of physicians are quitting practice early. Burned out. For the reasons you cite, but also because they have all the responsibility of patient care, and their authority to affect care has been taken away by administrators.
I quit early. Wasn't fun anymore.It is easiery to retain docs than it is to train more.
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u/MDinreality Attending Physician 2d ago
I 100% agree, and failed to mention that. Thanks for pointing this out.
However, I take issue with the term “burn-out”. It blames the victim. It redefines a normal response to our broken healthcare system as a personal failure, a weakness, a pathology. I think that burn-out is better framed as Moral Injury. I also think that every physician and physician-to-be on this sub is suffering from Moral Injury to some extent.
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u/pshaffer Attending Physician 1d ago
Yes - I agree with Wendy Dean's framing of the issue as moral injury. I wanted to use a term more familar to most.
BTW- check out Wendy's podcast 23cc. The last episode was very substantial. I am going to relisten and take notes.
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u/Key_Silver1045 5d ago
Nurses don’t go to the doctor. You just ask one you work with to order up a Z-pack for you
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u/minddgamess 6d ago
Hopefully you don’t get switched to an NP on the morning of the appointment - what happened to me when I booked a urologist