Port-a-John McDonough: Ambiguous Titles for Health Providers are Not Good for Patients
Hi. Look at this wonderful picture of a Port-John. When I was downrange in Iraq, these were considered a luxury. A royal flush if you will. Now refer to the referenced article written by “Dr.” John P. McDonough, APRN, CRNA, EdD. The article references Florida “House Bill 721 introduced by Rep. Ralph Massullo purports to be an effort to eliminate patient confusion by reserving the title “anesthesiologist” exclusively for medical doctors.” An EdD referring to themselves as “Dr.” wants to use the title “anesthesiologist,” a physician term for a physician who practices the branch of medicine known as anesthesiology. “In 2019 I petitioned the Florida Board of Nursing and received a unanimous declaratory statement that I could use “nurse anesthesiologist” as a descriptor for my role along with the official CRNA designation.” Then the article draws a parallel, which seems a bit hypocritical, referencing that anesthesiology assistants started referring to themselves as anesthetists. Thereby encroaching on the CRNA certified registered nurse anesthetist realm. So, am I to understand this as a complaint of anesthesiology assistants using terminology of anesthetists encroaching on the certified registered nurse anesthetists who now want to encroach on the physician realm using the term anesthesiologists? Am I the only one confused here? But, here we go with the ole reference to these dubious “studies:” “Numerous independent studies show no difference in the safety or quality of care when APRNs and CRNAs administer the services they have been educated and trained to deliver, compared to physicians providing the same services.” As is typical, this isn’t cited, and these studies have been debunked, debated, and riddled with bias and poor methodology. But hey, it sounds good right? To the same extent physicians want to differentiate themselves from CRNA’s, CRNAs want to differentiate themselves from “significantly less-trained assistants describe themselves as anesthetists.” So, Port-a-John wants the same thing physicians want, to differentiate themselves from “significantly less trained (his words)” CRNA’s. What’s the difference?
One decision. Anyone who claims they are as good as a doctor should be prohibited from using doctors. A CRNA who claims they are equal, should only be allowed to use a CRNA for his valve replacement and bypass.
Also they should no longer be able to claim that they only need to be held to the standard of a NP for a malpractice trial, they should be held to the physician standard, and expert witness physicians can testify against them with impunity.
But the real reason behind this is….money. For years, these fields expanded first by saying they would go to rural areas, then by saying they would save money. Now it is really about billing the same as a physician with considerably more training and hours. We have CRNA with 3 years of training after college making more than 50% of physicians who had 7 to 14 years of training after college and many, many more hours.and responsibilities.