Episode 15 - Is “Practice Creep” allowing Physicians and PAs/NPs to Practice Beyond the Scope of Training?

The last time you went to the emergency room or to a doctor’s office, were you surprised to be seen by a Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistants/Associate only rather than a physician or a team of people? Does it seem like there are more and more of these types of encounters in medicine, where the doctor isn’t even part of the visit? Historically, the role of a NP and PA had been developed to improve access to healthcare and offload physicians from more of the straightforward patient care tasks in medicine. However, more recently the role of these types of providers, called APPs, has evolved into becoming specialists, addressing new problems independently, managing complex patients and even performing complicated surgical procedures. The APPs can even switch specialities without having to train the way a physician would to switch and in many states, don’t need physician supervision to practice.

So where does this leave us… Has this has impacted the care of patients? The trust patients have in the medical system? The cost of care? The access to care? And, is this “fair” to our APPs to expect them to take on so much more their training allowed for - to literally, throw them in the deep end with a “sink or swim” mentality?

In this episode, Dr. Kohli and Dr. Jazaeri tackle these difficult question and many more. And… spoiler alert… they even discuss the question at the end of “Why would anyone want to be a physician rather than an NP or PA?” 

This is HeART of Medicine episode you won’t want to miss!