education
A dearth of supervisors for nurse practitioners
Adobe
In our straining health care system, nurse practitioners are seemingly well-positioned to fill the gaps. After receiving a master’s degree and working at least 500 hours in a clinical setting with a supervisor, they’re able to perform many of the same duties as a doctor. But as The Hechinger Report’s Colleen Connolly reports, there’s a major bottleneck for would-be nurse practitioners.
There are not nearly enough supervisors, known as preceptors, willing to take on students for those 500 hours of training. Accredited schools are required to either provide clinical placements or help students find them, but many skate by doing the bare minimum, leaving students to fend for themselves. Preceptors aren’t typically paid, but it’s becoming increasingly common for students to offer money — sometimes even cash — to get their hours. Read more from Connolly on this complicated, consequential problem.
first opinion
Shaking hands, learning lessons
We’ve got two heartfelt First Opinion essays this morning from doctors on the daily practice of medicine:
During a recent shift in the emergency room, Zain Khawaja saw a patient with a suspected cancer-related emergency. Her life was potentially about to be upended. The first thing Khawaja did when he walked into the room was shake hands with the patient and her family members. “The handshake did not change her diagnosis,” Khawaja writes. “But it seemed to remind her (and me) that she was not merely the patient in the room with the concerning test results. She was a person experiencing one of the most frightening days of her life.” Read more.
Cardiologist Benjamin I. Lee retired from medicine four years ago, but he missed using his knowledge and skills. He started volunteering at a community clinic, where he realized there was a lot left for him to learn after a career in private practice. “It was only after retiring from mainstream medicine when I fully comprehended the callous limitations of our health care system and how it impacts the most vulnerable among us,” he wrote. Read more.
