I later found that this knowledge of each others profession was not reciprocal. Why do you ask? I would appreciate it if you, and perhaps some of your medical colleagues, could respond to them and provide some insight into this issue. Comments are moderated before they are published. Here’s what it gets right. I know nursing is a 2 year degree, and most people probably do not do it simply because they love caring for people (because that would be obvious by their behaviour). ... but to change the rules around what doctors do. 2 Registered Nurses comprise one of the largest segments … Just because! But the law and society have laid the ultimate privilege and burden on the person that people call “doctor.”  That’s the difference. Doctor’s clinical training in a formal educational system is usually longer. Considering how many nurses a doctor comes in contact with during the course of his/her career, I am surprised by the lack of knowledge about their most closely allied profession, and by the complete lack of curiosity about them, about their training, or their reasons for choosing the profession. You don’t always know where you stand with patients. Lifestyle and money? This is not to say that nurses don’t also have a responsibility to their patients and their field, or that they haven’t invested just as much time and money. A nurse has an undergraduate degree in nursing. Doctors were more likely to say they had or would order it (42%) than were nurses, at 37%. When she came back for the second dose in September she began to experience distressing symptoms. The aging Baby Boomer population is living longer and seeking treatment for chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Doctors go to medical school for four years and then have specialty training after that. A nurse practitioner has a master’s degree. — -- For doctors and nurses, hand hygiene is supposed to be as intuitive as breathing. I will encourage my … Author has 57 answers and 9.2K answer views. The best to you in your years ahead. Change ). Every aspect of healthcare in the U.S. is changing, and it is changing rapidly. I would suggest to my readers that the only thing that truly separates doctors from nurses is the ultimate responsibility. I continued to ask several of my doctor colleagues the same question, only to find that they had never been told much about the nursing profession other than adages like “don’t piss off the nurse”, or “the nurses know the best take-out places,” and maybe a bit about Florence Nightingale. Overcome COVID vaccine hesitancy and boost vaccine confidence: How you can help, Emily O’Brien, PhD and Jessica Mega, MD, MPH, In the emergency department: Patients ravaged by mental illness, Unmasking the faces of COVID: pages from a neurologist’s diary, An open letter to the medical community at large regarding the termination of Dr. Princess Dennar, Sacharitha Bowers, MD, Eve Bloomgarden, MD, Regina Royan, MD, MPH, Angela Weyand, MD, and Shikha Jain, MD, I am disgusted with our politicians who have used the pandemic as a political tool, Recognize the Trump that lies within each of us and try to heal him, A real-life example of irrational health care spending. I hope I see some change in my lifetime, but most likely like my other colleagues, will just have to wait until I graduate and am able to be in an environment where I am respected as a colleague and no longer have to be around people who cannot act professionally. The patient and the future of a growing health care industry are caught in the middle of this dilemma.