juicycadaver The only thing worse than an ND getting prescribing rights is a psychologist. Neither are trained for the awesome responsibility prescribing requires.
IT IS NOT just the taking of a pharmacology class which gives MD/DO's the knowledge required, but the years (I repeat, years) of supervised training throughout medical school and residency.
Oh please ... so where were you when PA/NPs were getting their prescription pads based on their couple of years of training?
Stop trying to make prescribing medication sound like it requires sort of divine intervention.
It would seem the greatest travesty is that an MD who, yes acquires a broad based foundation but then spends those years (repeat, years)
specializing, is nevertheless is permitted unrestricted, unlimited authority to prescribe any kind of medication as long as s/he holds a valid license. By all means, let's have pediatricians, GPs, internists, and OB/GYNs prescribe the most psychotropics because that is so what they know.
Yes, it could be argued that psychologists -- this minute -- are not prepared ("off the shelf") to prescribe a limited formulary of psychotropic medications. But there has been proposed an extensive training program -- much more involved than PA/NP pharmacology training -- to bring psychologists up to that level.
The resistance to psychologists joining the prescription pad club is just turf defense.
Which raises the question of how naturopaths in CA were able to "quietly" get unlimited authority for prescriptions when psychologists are being fought tooth and nail for a restricted authority.
More puzzling, as the underlying philosophy of naturopathy is the utilization of
natural therapeutics, why did they
want the authority in the first place?
