Romany I'll leave this discussion in your capable hands, I've posted the idea of practising nurses taking a greater role in health for so long it tires me.
Sociologist, your conservative ideas, for the role of doctors and nurses
is myopic, and reflects the "doctors union" well. It may well have served us in the past, but it no longer does so.
fluff4

Nurse practitioners are not "dumbing down" any systems. How can they when they are advancing their training and skills to higher levels? They are individually registered professionals who are seeking to advance the profession of nursing. They would balk at the prospect of attaining "pseudomedical status". If they wanted to be medics, then they would train as medics, rather than a 4 year nursing degree, followed by years of clinical experience, a masters degree qualification and the seperate registration and credentialling required to become a nurse practitioner. They wish to continue within the deontological nursing ethic, to provide holistic care to their patients IN PARTNERSHIP with the patient, the medical staff and other healthcare workers. They are able to overlook these TURF wars and strive for the overall good of the patent. Lets face it, thats why anyone works in healthcare isn't it?

Nurse practitioners, appropriately qualified, are able to provide a level of individual care that is independent of medical practitioners and not medically orientated. However, this paper laced with platitudes of 'quality of care' in unconvincing. It is naive to suggest, for example, that nurse pratitioners in rural and remote areas could of itself positively influence the health if indigenous people. Where proper systems of service and standards are lacking, it is hardly possible to practice safely and effectively for any nurse. Do not undermine the many experienced registered nurses who are highly skilled and knowledgable in their area of practice. Without these nurses we will not have 'quality' in health care.

AIMEE “Nurse practitioners are not "dumbing down" any systems. How can they when they are advancing their training and skills to higher levels?”

The “dumbing-down” is achieved by “diluting” the accepted qualifications and thus standard and “quality of those who we, the consumer / patients, rely on, at face value, to provide medical diagnosis and to prescribe remedies.

It can be reasonably expected that the less competently tested provider of diagnosis and remedies, on any scale of probability, is more likely to make errors than the better qualified.

Since those errors might be of a life threatening nature, such “dumbing-down” could predictably result in fatal outcomes.

“Death” is an expensive price to pay for the issue of nurse-practitioner licenses, especially if you happen to be the patient.