Health Care Providers and Professionals

Health Care Providers and Professionals
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Comparing Nurse Practitioners and Physicians
The interconnected concepts of medical care access, quality and costs are fundamental to the current health policy discussion in America. Particular issues include the escalating costs of the management of chronic diseases, reduced number of key care physicians and the quality of health care provided (Sox, 1979). In medical care, the meaning of quality keeps evolving. The meaning that has been in existence is attached to the treatment given to patients, the manner in which the treatment is given and the satisfaction of the patient being treated. As such, it is important to understand the role of each player in the health care sector to truly understand the meaning of quality health care. In this regard, this paper shall focus on comparing the nurse practitioners and the physicians. The comparison shall be based on the roles they play, the kind of training they undergo, the practice requirements and the practice setting.
Role
First, the difference between a nurse practitioner and a physician is based on their role in the field of medicine. Physicians’ role is to center on treating and finding the cure for a disease which means that they study diseases and the methods of curing them (Melillo, Et. al, 2015). On the other hand, nurse practitioners’ major role is to center on providing health care to the patient. In essence, their main focus is the patient and the ways of healing them.

The difference in these two roles is based on the meaning of cure and healing. Healing involves restoring the psychological, emotional and physical well-being of a patient while curing a patient involves giving the prescription that gets rid of the disease from a patient’s system (Sullivan‐Marx & Maislin, 2000). In this regard, nurse practitioners’ role is to focus on the patient and restoring the psychological and emotional condition of the patient whereas the physicians’ role is to find and prescribe to the patient the best treatment and the most appropriate intervention for their conditions.
However, there is an overlap in the roles of the nurse practitioners and physicians in that both diagnose, manage and treat acute diseases and also regulate and interpret diagnostic test and recommend medications.
Practice Requirements
The practice requirements of nurse practitioners and physicians are different. For nurse practitioners to be allowed to practice or provide services in the medical field, one has to be registered with recognized education in caring for the sick together with higher training and education in the treatment, diagnosis and management of frequent chronic illnesses (Melillo, Et. al, 2015). On the other hand, for a physician to practice medicine, he or she must be a registered physician with recognized training and education in medicine. The training may be for the treatment of diseases through drugs, treatment of chronic diseases using procedures or the treatment of chronic diseases using surgery.
Training
Nurse practitioners and physician differ in the way they are trained and in their theoretical approach to medical care. First, physicians stay in training institutions longer than the nurse practitioners. In some cases, physician training institutions are filled with nurse practitioners who seek to progress their skills and knowledge in the field of health care. Secondly, nurse practitioners are trained and educated to give care to patients in all dimensions of their lives while physicians decide on the area in which to specialize because of their proficient familiarity with diseases states (Sullivan‐Marx & Maislin, 2000). In essence, nurses are trained to accentuate patient education, health promotions and prevention of diseases and they lack the deeper and broader knowledge required to be familiar with cases in which several symptoms show more severe conditions. On the other hand, physicians are trained to provide multifaceted different diagnosis, come up with an intervention plan that deals with numerous organ systems and regulate and interpret laboratory tests within the circumstance of an individual’s overall physical condition. This skill is earned during the thorough and profound medical science study and the long hours of clinical study.
Practice setting
For the practice setting, both the medical practitioners practice in the healthcare facilities such as clinics and hospitals. However, nurse practitioners have for a long time been considered team members rather than leaders in the health care facilities. Their scope of work is limited by their license which makes them second in command to physicians in a healthcare facility setting. Also, nurse practitioners can provide health care services in homes and care for the elderly and children in their home instead of going to the hospitals (Sox, 1979). This is because of the nature of their dynamic training that requires them to provide extensive care to patients and individuals in the society. Being concerned with the individuals rather than the disease, they are the ones to create health awareness in the community. On the other hand, physicians are concerned with diseases and are strictly based in health centers.
Finally, it is important to understand the roles of these two practitioners as they are the main players in the sector of providing medical services. Nurses are very important because they are the ones that understand the patients and help them to fully recover from their conditions. The recovery is both emotional and psychological. Physicians are only concerned with the prescriptions and the appropriate interventions. Thus, the two practitioners are very important in the provision of health care services.
References
Melillo, K. D., Remington, R., Abdallah, L., Gautam, R., Gore, R. J., Lee, A. J., & VanEtten, D. (2015). Comparison of Nurse Practitioner and Physician Practice Models in Nursing Facilities. Annals of Long-Term Care, 23(12), 19-24.
Sox, H. C. (1979). Quality of Patient Care by Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants: a ten-year Perspective. Annals of Internal Medicine, 91(3), 459-468.
Sullivan‐Marx, E. M., & Maislin, G. (2000). Comparison of Nurse Practitioner and Family Physician Relative Work Values. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 32(1), 71-76.