Letters to the Editor Address Role of Nurse Practitioners in Health Care System
The Wall Street Journal on Friday published several letters about an April 2 article on the increased number of nursing schools that have begun to offer doctor of nursing practice degree programs, which the schools maintain provide graduates with skills equivalent to those of primary care physicians. Summaries appear below.
- Joanne Pohl: The DNP degree is a "powerful innovation in nurse practitioner education," Pohl, president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, writes. "With a looming primary care physician shortage, qualified primary care providers are in great demand," she writes, adding, "Who better than nurse practitioners to provide leadership to help meet that demand?" Nurse practitioners "will continue to provide person-centered, high-quality care," and the degree "will enhance our already important clinical contributions," Pohl concludes (Pohl, Wall Street Journal, 4/11).
- Edward Langston: The American Medical Association has the "deepest respect for nurses," but "it's an undeniable fact that a nurse with a graduate degree" does not have the same "education and training as a physician who has completed medical school and residency training," Langston, chair of the AMA board of trustees, writes. He adds that "it's misleading to patients for nurses to introduce themselves as a doctor." According to Langston, most "nursing organizations recommend that DNP students complete just 1,000 hours of 'practical experience' after obtaining a bachelor's degree," but physicians "complete more than 12 times that amount during their graduate education" (Langston, Wall Street Journal, 4/11).
- Marylu Manning: "If nurse practitioners want to pursue a doctorate, I feel it should be a Ph.D. to prepare for teaching or research," not a "clinical doctorate," Manning, cancer program manager at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, writes. She adds, "To use the title 'doctor' is knowingly misleading." She concludes, "Why antagonize the physicians," who are "just now beginning to accept the nurse practitioner as a vital part of the medical team?" (Manning, Wall Street Journal, 4/11).
- Carla Mills: Efforts to establish the DNP degree have "discredited the more than 100,000 master's-educated nurse practitioners who practice safely and effectively and do so with our patients' unqualified support," Mills, a nurse practitioner and president of MaverickHealth, writes. "You see ... you can't learn clinical expertise in schools," she writes, adding, "You learn it from experience, expert clinicians and your patients." She writes, "I fully respect the skills doctors possess, as well as their education and training," but nurse practitioners have "skills, experience and expertise that doctors don't possess" (Mills, Wall Street Journal, 4/11).
