Why not Nursing?

[pkbronco]

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How exactly is the best way to defend your decision to pursue an MD, not an RN? Clearly, you don't want to sound arrogant and downplay any nurses, and it seems like all the typical things, like patient contact, using basic science skills to help others, classifying biological systems and diseases can all be accomplished in nursing.

I know my reasons for not wanting to get my DO, but not pursuing nursing seems like a harder thing to defend. Any thoughts?

 

[FutureNeuroStud]

How exactly is the best way to defend your decision to pursue an MD, not an RN? Clearly, you don't want to sound arrogant and downplay any nurses, and it seems like all the typical things, like patient contact, using basic science skills to help others, classifying biological systems and diseases can all be accomplished in nursing.

I know my reasons for not wanting to get my DO, but not pursuing nursing seems like a harder thing to defend. Any thoughts?

You will probably want to develop an answer based on the fact that MDs are more autonomous than PAs, NPs, RNs, etc. and that they have more control over the patients' diagnosis and treatment, should they choose to employ such control.

My personal answer relates to the fact that I want to be a surgeon, though it does not directly state that in its delivery. I respond to such a question with intentions of wanting the final say in what happens with particular patients and having the capability to physically or statutorially direct such treatments/surgeries.

 

[MedicineNutt]

MD's have a larger liability...they're the one's who are in charge and therefore has all the blame when a mishappening occurs! nurses rarely get the cheese out of their pocket

 

[Oculus Sinistra]

You will probably want to develop an answer based on the fact that MDs are more autonomous than PAs, NPs, RNs, etc. and that they have more control over the patients' diagnosis and treatment, should they choose to employ such control.

You'll want to look out for the inevitable question about how your freedom to make decisions can still be constricted by the hospital, the insurance companies, etc

 

[durfen]

How exactly is the best way to defend your decision to pursue an MD, not an RN? Clearly, you don't want to sound arrogant and downplay any nurses, and it seems like all the typical things, like patient contact, using basic science skills to help others, classifying biological systems and diseases can all be accomplished in nursing.

I know my reasons for not wanting to get my DO, but not pursuing nursing seems like a harder thing to defend. Any thoughts?

I don't want to be a girl. 😴

edit: that was a joke ladies.

 

[Veshy]

I don't want to be a girl. 😴

edit: that was a joke ladies.

Zing.

 

[Depakote]

My personal answer relates to the fact that I want to be a surgeon...

So you want to think you're God without actually being God...

 

[steppwolf]

Tie it to capability. You can do more to help/heal as a physician.

 

[notdeadyet]

they have more control over the patients' diagnosis and treatment, should they choose to employ such control.

I think FutureNeuroStud hit the crux of it.

I'd avoid answers about patient care. If you spend much time in a hospital setting, you find that nurses often spend more time with the patients than doctors do. I'd also be careful of treatment answers, as nurses often spend more time executing treatments.

But if you want to diagnose and develop treatment plans, this is the domain of physicians.

 

[notdeadyet]

Tie it to capability. You can do more to help/heal as a physician.

I'd avoid this one like the plague. You'd be very hard pressed to prove you're not wrong.

btw, no interest in getting into a doctors vs. nurses debate, but saying doctors do more to help/heal is like saying that the principal ultimately helps educate more students than the teachers. Bad strategy.

 

[steppwolf]

saying doctors do more to help/heal is like saying that the principal ultimately helps educate more students than the teachers. Bad strategy.

Bad analogy. A physician is a practitioner, not an administrator. He/she is as much a hands-on caregiver as a nurse but brings a lot more knowledge to the task. And the patient looks to the doctor for the cure, not to the nurse.

Now, I agree with you that there is a way to say this and a way not to say it. It would be a mistake to sound condescending toward the nursing profession.

 

[njbmd]

How exactly is the best way to defend your decision to pursue an MD, not an RN? Clearly, you don't want to sound arrogant and downplay any nurses, and it seems like all the typical things, like patient contact, using basic science skills to help others, classifying biological systems and diseases can all be accomplished in nursing.

I know my reasons for not wanting to get my DO, but not pursuing nursing seems like a harder thing to defend. Any thoughts?

Nursing and medicine are two completely different fields. Why medicine and not morturary science fro that matter? Morturary science like nursing has some common characteristics with medicine (DO or MD). Since DOs and MDs are the same, it would seem to me that defending not getting a DO is much harder than defending why you do not want to go into nursing or morturary science.

Now if you don't know the difference between nursing and medicine, you might come off as arrogant. That's a different case entirely.

 

[LizzyM]

Keep in mind that in some jursidictions, advanced practice nurse practioners are working alone in small offices within Walmarts and supermarkets (with a physician supervisor not on site). School nurses also diagnose and treat under protocols approved by physicians. Then there are the nurse midwives and the nurse anesthetists.

 

[deleted36260]

Being a nurse doesn't provide the level of autonomy, nor the ability to practice the scope of medicine I'd like to pursue 🙂

 

[pkbronco]

So I'm reading that more responsibility and a greater control of diagnosis and treatment plans are safe ways to defend not going into nursing. Correct?

Going the route of more patient interaction and providing care and treatment seems flawed, considering nurses handle more of this workload.

I know DO is not for me because there are fundamental difference in practice styles and diagnostic procedures that I don't want to dedicate my life to, although I happen to agree with and respect.

 

[StritchMD2011]

Would it be appropriate to bring up the fact that physicians typically have more specialized knowledge than those other professions? I'm the type who would rather know everything about one topic than have only basic knowledge about many topics. I believe that physicians have more of an intellectual challenge in some cases, and are really required to call on the information they've learned during medical school

I know this is a sticky area, because I don't want to imply that nurses or PA's are less educated or less specialized. Nurses and PA's are very highly trained in their areas, but I like the fact that physicians typically have a more widespead knowledge about the science behind diseases and their treatments.

Is there a way to rephrase this answer to make it sound a bit more eloquent?

I don't want to come off as elitist. I think nurses and PA's are crucial to the healthcare field and that their jobs are equally as important than any physician.

 

[zxcv1234]

The desire to know

 

[rachmoninov3]

Nursing: 12 hours with the 6 to 10 different patients, pushing pain meds, hanging antibiotics, transcribing orders, checking charts for missed orders, dealing with family members, wrestling with patients, starting IV's, making sure the CNAs are doing their jobs, charting, charting, and more charting, and eventually, some time to sit and listen to the patients and comfort them.

MD: Have the chance to change/save someone's life. Being an MD doesn't give you the power to have the final say as some have said earlier. It is the patient who has the ultimate power decide what treatment they will or will not take. Why I'm choosing the MD rather than the RN that my mother and grandmother have, is because a physician changed my life. Countless nurses, medics, and even CNA's have cared for me and kept me alive, but it's been a doctor who has saved it and given me a new life.

However, I must add that a doctor should spend the same % of time listening to their patients and comforting them as a nurse does. The MD has the knowledge, but it is the patient who has the power. You can only help the patient if you can convince them to use your knowledge. This takes trust, which comes from an equal, open relationship. And that starts with listening and comforting. Listeing and comforting are the basis for both nursing and medicine. We're on the same time, we're just playing different positions.


stepping down off the soap-box 😳

 

[Mac11]

Now if you don't know the difference between nursing and medicine

So would this be that as a doctor you have more influence over a patients treatment/diagnosis, which you want because...?

I'm looking for interview appropriate answers, not personal opinions 👍

 

[zxcv1234]

...the differences of an artist and a paint mixer...

 

[asunshine]

I wouldn't necessarily say that nurses don't save people's lives. It is very rare that it is *one* person who saves someone's life. (e.g. Aide recognizes an emergency, nurse delivers the shock, pharmacist supplies the med, but doctor decides what caused it. Who saved the life?)

I think a response saying that you want to be the leader of the healthcare team, that you are more interested in patient care from a science/diagnosis/complicated procedure perspective, and that you prefer a more detailed and extensive training would be appropriate. A lot relates to what you expect from your education.

I absolutely 100% agree with rachmoninov about the patient as the one with the final say.

hm...paint mixer....Can't wait to see your first interaction with a nurse!😱

 

[deleted109597]

Oh, and a some nurses do like to diagnose, because after a certain amount of they feel it is their right. Doctors often start to dislike these nurses.
Unless they are midlevel providers that the doctors want to diagnose and pay less money than partners.

 

[Mac11]

I
I think a response saying that you want to be the leader of the healthcare team, that you are more interested in patient care from a science/diagnosis/complicated procedure perspective, and that you prefer a more detailed and extensive training would be appropriate. A lot relates to what you expect from your education.

good stuff!

 

[ofthebest]

"White shoes after Labor day. Can't do that."

 

[pkbronco]

Oh, and a some nurses do like to diagnose, because after a certain amount of they feel it is their right. Doctors often start to dislike these nurses.
Unless they are midlevel providers that the doctors want to diagnose and pay less money than partners.

That picture is totally Gaylord Focker!!

 

[greytmedic]

Oh, and a some nurses do like to diagnose, because after a certain amount of they feel it is their right. Doctors often start to dislike these nurses.
Unless they are midlevel providers that the doctors want to diagnose and pay less money than partners.

Drurses=nurses who think they are doctors