by healthcare politician
(dc, washington)
Switching to the DNP is the most counterpoductive move from the nursing anesthesia association standpoint. Just because they want to be equals as “Dr.”…they will never have the respect and title of being called “Dr.” in the medical community because that is a reserved right for the MD’s who have pushed 4 years of medical school, 4 years of residency, and possibly 2 year of fellowship. Having a practical career is investing into a practical debt and being rewarded with the autonomy of giving decisive orders, rewarding salary, and the most influential actions on benefiting the community.
MD’s are the top of the medical food chain because they have full autonomy and command. They dedicated 150,000 dollars of debt in tuition, however they easily are rewarded with 250,000/year minimum. Let’s take a family physician career that the public claims that they are being only paid 120,000/year. That’s such an understatement. They are so high in demand now that these very family physicians have left their clinics and signed on to local travel assignments in small urgent care clinics, and they easily are compensated $125/hr to start. It doesn’t make sense and its unfair for nurses to invest into a DNP 3 year program and accumulate 100k in debt and only start off
at 130k per year as a nurse anesthetist.
Still, they are mid-level practitioners being told what to do by the MD’s at the end of the day. The MD’s used to feel threatened by the job security of the nurse anesthetists. However, now the MD’s don’t have to worry about it because the nurse anesthetist association basically broke down their own opportunities in the future due to the DNP decision and the ever increasing debt of school. The real Dr.’s make the decisions, and they take practical scientific classes in their medical programs instead of taking fluffy wasteful classes writing papers.
Sometimes, the impracticality of educational institutional decisions are baffling. I feel so bad for nurses because they are the unsung heroes who work so hard. I can see why nurses can be bitter, because they sometimes are stepped on and unappreciated by the public and at times by the MD’s. I rarely see MD’s “eat their young” as they call it in the healthcare world, because they are strong professionals, and they know they will always have the last decision that will move forward. Nurses are the backbone of healthcare, and nursing anesthesia was the pioneering of great skill by the nursing world. However, the DNP decision is very impractical. Sad….