A point and counterpoint over at IM News.
Related posts:
- Retail clinics are not for patients with chronic disease
- Retail clinics
- Chronic Lyme disease
- Chronic Lyme disease
- Chronic Lyme disease
- Chronic disease management
- Diagnosis to chronic disease management
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 4 comments }
If retail clinics will manage chronic conditions, then med schools and residency programs should do away with family practice programs. All we need now is internal medicine programs. Lets not fool ourselves into family medicine when we are licensing and/or allowing others to practice chronic medicine. I will tell all med school bound students to avoid fam practice, it will have been taken over by the non md’s by then.
I am glad i became a fam doc 30 yrs ago, not now.
if NPs, PAs, and pharmacists can now practice primary care, so be it.
Perhaps ultimately RNs will be licensed to prescribe meds too (after all, an NP’s training is MUCH closer to that of an RN than an MD).
Maybe then LPN’s can be “providers” too. Then perhaps CNA’s.
Then the x-ray tech can interpret MRIs of the central nervous system.
And the physical therapist can perform joint injections & minor surgery. The slippery slope argument is clear, isn’t it?
But this will be the nail in the coffin of primary care MEDICINE. And for myself & my family, I’m glad i’m a DOCTOR (not a “provider”).
It is about time that we saw the anachronism known as allopathic primary care put to rest. At some level, existing providers are to blame for their own demise via the practice of defensive medicine. In the final calculus it doesn’t require an MD to exhibit nil clinical skill and instead refer, refer and refer their patients for testing, testing and more testing. Any NP or PA can just as easily refer, refer and refer. Expanding the base of those that can legally provide basic primary care by eliminating the allopathic component of the same will help bring some semblance of balance to the system.
~Crimnallopath~
it is hard enough for physicians to handle many patients, i just dont think primary care should totally be in the hands of nonMd or nonDO’s. i really dont care if NP’s, PA’s, or others take over primary care, but i sure as hell will look for an MD or a DO and get regular checks by them. ie., its ok to see these other providers, provided you have an MD or a DO that you can always go to. i know a lot of patients that dont have a doctor, this is sad, cause when it comes to something serious, they are gonna end up in the ER and perhaps lost thru the cracks
Comments on this entry are closed.