[NPInfo] Back to Tracy

[EPartinFNP at aol.com]

Well said, Tracy!
 
Beth Partin


>From: Tracy Klein <whcnp at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: NP  Info <npinfo at nurse.net>
>To: npinfo at nurse.net
>Subject:  [NPInfo] Re: Medicine/Nursing/Healthcare
>Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 10:32:48  -0800
>
>Framing the question as whether a nurse practices nursing  or medicine  
>really invites the erection of parallel fences. It  generates a  tremendous 
>amount of legislative and statutory  activity which some of  you have posted 
>here. It is the wrong  question in my opinion.
>
>Nurses practice nursing. Physical  therapists practice physical  therapy. 
>Both use assessment and  diagnosis in their work. Say what  you will about 
>"nursing  diagnosis" (and I can hear the buzzing  already) it was an attempt 
 
>to capture what nurses do in a measurable  way to validate their  practice 
>and remove it from invisibility. When  that was less  than successful, the 
>next step was for nursing to  engage in a  fight to use "medical diagnosis". 
>Meanwhile, nurses  mocked each  other for "stupidly" trying to define their 
>practice in a   measurable way that someone who counts insurance beans or  
>whatever  could understand.
>
>While they were busy  doing this, psychologists and social workers  learned 
>how to use  DSM-IV, bill and get paid for it. Physical  therapists set up  
>their own practices, can do so without an MD order  in our state  anyhow, 
>and happily use medical diagnosis and treat  patients for  what they see 
>with modalities in their scope. Meantime,  these  folks seem to be able to 
>educate themselves to establish a  scope  of practice, set up a business, 
>ask for (and get) 100.00 or  more  dollars an hour, and are not being paid 
>35-45.00 an hour to   clean their own floors (thanks, retail clinics).
>
>Why can't we  manage to do the same? Step outside of the paradigm  which  
>requires you to beg to be practicing medicine, using medical   diagnosis, 
>fighting every second to "defend" what you do. Start   focusing on what you 
>do and are educated to do, and don't  apologize  for it. But start working 
>harder to describe, explain,  define,  professionalize, and support with 
>real research that you  do what you  do. And much thanks to those who are 
>busy engaging  in such research  and have taken more crap from nurses and 
>nurse  practitioners because  they are not "real  clinicians".
>
>Tracy Klein, WHCNP, FNP
>Portland,  Oregon