Physician Substitute 1
This is how sad it has become. I was sent this post from Monster.com and this company is looking for a Physician Substitute 1. Oh….my…..god! It’s as if what we have become as physicians is so meaningless that anyone with some medical training will do. “Practitioners” can now introduce themselves as a “Physician Substitute”. Oh, wait a minute, that’s right, that won’t happen. In twenty years I have never heard a midlevel correct a patient who called them “doctor”. We are now moving into the aspartame phase of healthcare.
“Aspartame” is right, with all the possible bad side effects and a bad taste in the mouth
FP is dead as a specialty. The AAFP will be dead or a shell of itself in 15 to 20 years. As primary care docs are kicked out of the hospitals and relegated to the office only, the payers will presume care is sufficient by the “physician substitutes”. No need to do med school or residency anymore to do “physician substitute” work. No need for the specialty I say. Plus the electronification of medicine has led to far more “uncompensatable” paperwork for the pricare doc to do and as we all know, “Shit rolls downhill.” I tell students to stay away and opt for a more satisfying specialty practice of being able to say, “See your primary care for that….”
Plus…………..remember, its’ all the primary care doc’s fault that people eat shit, smoke and drink too much. Until there are financial incentives for patients to “behave” properly, nothing, I repeat NOTHING is going to change in this country. Hell the AAFP is totally stupid about this and just espouse “feel good about yourself” bullshit. Oh, BTW send the ABFM more money for this useless MOC crap.
Wait a minute, with all that text what they want is someone who can plug a junkie or drunk into a machine to separate his/her blood for usable bits. There are a lot of out of work Lab Chimps who could do it.
Doug: you are not being fair. There is not a PA or NP worth his or her salt who would call themselves a “physician substitute”. It’s not what we are about. If you have worked with us closely you know we love being who we are-99% of us never wanted to be physicians. Do we feel that we can do much yes! Do we feel we have a real, honest place in medicine……yes. Do we feel we are god…….yes. But after many years, I never met a PA who wanted to be called “Dr.” or accepted it. We must travel in very different circles.
Let’s not cast a net over a bunch of people who really want to do well. And I know you obviously don’t feel this way, are colleagues. We are not going away and it’s not going to get any better by attacking us.
BTW, no PA was involved in formulating that name.
Dave
I work with many PAs and NPs. The overwhelming majority are good people and good clinicians. I have also had very bad ones who wanted no input and had no idea what they were doing. But here I am talking about the constant attack on US to water down what WE do as doctors. And we should not have to take it. I won’t.
In twenty-plus years of practicing as a Physician Assistant I personally correct my patients EVERY time they call me “Doctor” because I AM NOT a doctor, chose not to be a doctor; love and am proud of what I do! I still have patients who say “I don’t care, you’re MY DOCTOR!” That I chose not to correct.
Pleease … Who is providing skilled, compassionate care for elders in nursing homes, community health centers, Medicaid patients, prisoners, people in institutions? Who sees disabled patients in their homes? Maybe a few physicians, but mostly NP’s and PA’s in collaboration with MD’s. These systems would otherwise collapse. I thought you were more enlightened.
You have no point. I have treated patients in nursing homes. I have worked in a Federally Qualified Health Center. I treat Medicaid patients. NPs and PAs have sacrificed NO MORE than doctors. In fact, because they spent less years in education and training they sacrificed LESS. Just stop already with your “wo is me” campaign. It won’t work on this site. I am very enlightened to the fact that NPs and PAs were created for COLLABORATION but now they pretend that they have equal education/training and now want to COMPETE with us. That is the hard truth. Go away if you don’t like to hear it.
Right on, Dave.
We’re getting squeezed right out by legions of PAs and NPs who undercut our prices and falsely claim to be doing our job as well as we do.
Are they advertising for hospital CEO substitutes? How about JCHAO inspector-assistants?