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All NPs are nurses but not all nurses are NPs. Advanced practice nurses are, by their own definitions, nurses with advanced training. That is why you are one profession and not two, and why the nursing board controls NP practice rather than a NP board. You're a nurse at the end of the day, and that is not an insult, it is a fact.
I've met many NPs that we're proud to call themselves nurses, for they believed that was a great part of what they brought to the table as an NP. There was even an "always a nurse" campaign or something similar about a half decade back where NPs emphasized the way their nursing background aided their ability to provide advanced care. That you have such a chip on your shoulder is unusual. Nurse practitioners are "advanced practise REGISTERED NURSES"- you're an RN that has advanced practice training and rights, period.
Just as nurses seek to take away the title of physician and the use of doctor in a clinical setting and replace it with "provider" or, in the case of anesthesia, "MDA," I think it's only fair to call a spade a spade. You're a nurse. A registered nurse, legally speaking. An advanced practice registered nurse. I think I'll just call you all advanced nurses from now on, as it is both truthful and fits with your legal titles (particularly in my state, where you are NOT referred to as practitioners in your practice act, but as advanced practice nurses).
You miss the point entirely, and I'm in no way trolling. You seem to think that we want to be celebrated, when we merely ask that our skill and hard work be acknowledged- we are more competent than APRNs, we have more knowledge than APRNs, and we very likely would outperform APRNs in any head-to-head study. You're an advanced nurse, I'm going to be a doctor. And, for the record, I do carefully select my mental health providers, as I refuse to use hack LCSWs that call themselves "therapists" in place of psychologists, since they don't have nearly the training nor skill that a psychologist has after their extensive work in the field (and no direct study has been done to compare the outcomes of the two, oddly enough). I respect people for what they do and what they are. Advanced nurses are effective physician extenders, not physician replacements, psychologists are effective therapy providers, not psychiatrist replacements, nurse aides are effective nurse extenders, not nurse replacements, etc. We each have our role in the system.
