On one hand, RNs have 100 other things they can do that make more money and/or better job quality. As my late residency director would always say "a high school kid could cut nails."
On the other side, podiatry absolutely does depend on nail care. There are nowhere near enough hospital/ortho work to go around with today's numbers of DPMs. We depend nail care directly (RFC codes), and we depend on it to bring in pts who have other issues we can treat. We are saturated with DPMs as it is, even with nail care (which one senior told me is "cheaper than a $50 pedicure shop visit these days"... uh, glad to help?).
...I agree I'm for anyone/anyone doing most nail care, but this issue is just the latest of 800 wake up calls to APMA to quit sending massive nubmers of people with $400k debt into a job with less and less jobs and demand. In an ideal world, we'd have 300 DPMs graduating each year... and many PP pods would have a nail tech (RN or otherwise) in their hospital clinic or employ three in their private office. That's the way Derm, Card, and most MD specialties do it (techs and/or RN and/or midlevels).