What the U.S. actually has is a group of people intent on keeping their doctor wages high by limiting supply through regulation and bottleneck creation.
Instead, what does an uncredentialled Chemistry Bachelor do after dropping out of medical school? ...I became an electrician, which allowed me to help people without sacrificing my lifestyle.
If your goal also includes "make substantial sums of money," I always recommend to preMeds they consider all the different ways someone can make money helping people without having to sacrifice your entire early adulthood.
The majority of my medschool classmates refer to me as "the dumbest smart guy they know," but in confidence several have expressed jealousy at not having to work so much (for IMHO so little, as physicians). Just cogs in an overly-complex, wealth-extracting machine...
When you’re smart enough to understand the consequences the of your “dumb decisions” and have the EQ to navigate the aftermath.
To each his own. I think higher education in America is primarily designed to degrate and beat students into submission.
As I've heard repeated elsewhere, the road to tenured PhD is paved with grad-student bodies.
Additionally, while many may be knowledgable about the medications they prescribe, I have had nurse practitioners prescribe me medication they didn't even know existed, as in during my session I asked for a specific medication based on a personal recomendation from a freind in the field, they didn't know what the medication was and looked up on google and then prescribed it to me.
There are good nurse practitioners, but they simply should not be prescribing long term pyschiatric medication with the level of schooling they have.
It takes 2 years to become a nurse, and 3 years to become a nurse practitioner. Additional certification is required to prescribe certain medications, but even then the amount of training and classes a nurse practitioner will take to understamd medications is very small compared to a psychiatrist.
It's absurd. NP's have been the solution to psychiatist shortage and it seems no one cares. Most likely, because anyone who knows is zombified by SSRIs by shit NPs or is in the medical field so their vision is already clouded by bias. Nurse takeover is a joke. Anybody with 2-3 years of schooling should be relagated to changing bedpans and putting in IVs. Not functioning as psuedo doctors.
How human that this practitioner admitted to not knowing something; then took the time to look up the drug's factsheet; and then trusted you enough to take your friend's personal recommendation.
>There are good nurse practitioners
Agreed. And terrible physicians, as well as good.
>...but they simply should not be prescribing long term pyschiatric medication with the level of schooling they have.
Agreed – with the additional thought that even physicians overprescribe these mind-altering substances in far-too-abundance.
>NP's have been the solution to psychiatist shortage and it seems no one cares...Nurse takeover is a joke.
I think most people "on psych meds" really just need better friends / families / societies / healthcare . It is most unfortunate that we are our own worst enemies, sometimes; particularly in allowing US healthcare expenditures to be highest with no obvious benefit (to patients).
It all made me so sick decades ago that I quit before even starting.