MDs abandon Family Care, NPs step up to Care

A long-term trend in medicine in the United States has been that medical school students continue to abandon Family Care and Rural Practice.

The corollary trend among Advance Practice Nurses & Nurse Practitioners – many whom must also pass National Board Certifications in their area of practice – has been to fill the void formed in the delivery of healthcare by physician abandonment. Typically, the argument given for such abandonment is pecuniary. That is, by the time the medical student graduates from medical school & residency to assume full and independent practice, their debt load is not merely burdensome or impractical, but almost wholly impossible to repay.

More recently, however, medical schools and public health authorities have acknowledged the error of allowing that deterioration and abandonment to occur, and have begun to promote Primary & Family Care among medical schools and their students. Such strategies include not merely the promotion of community and the advantages of rural independent practice, but include full-ride scholarships while in medical school.

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Nurse practitioners look to fill gap with expected spike in demand for health services

By Sarah Kliff, Published: May 12

President Obama’s health-care law is expected to expand health insurance to 32 million Americans over the next decade. Health policy experts anticipate that