Nurse Practitioner vs Doctor | What's the difference?

Hey guys! I have gotten so many questions asking me about the difference between a physician and a nurse practitioner. While we do perform similar functions within the healthcare system - our education and training look very different.

I don't think money should be your only factor in considering becoming a nurse practitioner, but it definitely is an important aspect to keep in mind! It can be challenging finding the right answers online. Hopefully this video can give you some clarity!

In today's video - I delve into what that difference in education and training actually is, and which path is better to choose?

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[shredder]

Everyone wants to be an MD or DO but they ain't willing (or able) to go thru med school

[AZ-wgeg]

MD/DO : 4 year undergraduate + premed prereqs (if not a bio/chem major)
-MCAT
Gap year (usually filled with research, shadowing, volunteer, )
2 years of HEAVY basic sciences generally 16 credit terms.
Step 1 (currently the most important exam to decide residency...this will change when pass/fail go into effect)
2 years clerkship+electives (rotations in core specialties) with specialty specific shelf exams.
Step 2 (also important exam)
Match into residency.
Work 3-4 years in residency
Become an attending...

As a first year you come out of school with over 5000 clinical hours two years of extensive basic sciences (on top of your undergrad) and rotations in specialties lasting 6-12 weeks each.


NP
3 year associate degree with prereqs (statistics, A/P 1 & 2, microbiology)
1 year fluff BSN
2-3 year MSN/DNP 35% interesting, 65% fluff.
some MSN/DNP do not require even a year of RN experience....



I am an RN (with my BSN) turning MD.

[mizzum]

Also residency is more like 3-7 years with additional 1-4 years for fellowship. This junk is so ridiculously inaccurate.

[rockets]

I’m married to an MD. I know several mid-level providers (yes, I know they are called APPs now). An NP is not an MD, while respect that community, as well as PAs, this growing movement to pretend that you are equivalent to an MD needs to end - east is east and west is west and never the two shall meet.

[Currysizzle]

Your numbers are misleading. Even if the average RN experience is 5-15 years, it still isn’t a requirement of becoming an NP. People on the MD path usually spend a considerable amount of hours in clinical settings to even apply for medical school in the first place and you fail to mention that. Your numbers of exposure are biased towards NP.

[sunnyk]

You comparisons are disingenuous. You're are intentionally stacking as much as you can on the NP side to make it seem on the surface equivalent as a new physician. You know there are NPs who graduate with no nursing work experience but intentionally don't include them in the comparison. If you are going to compare new graduates, then include new graduates with no work experience with a caveat that there are nurses who work professionally before entering into NP school.

[jamesedward]

As a physician for over a decade I've never once mistaken an NP note for a physician's and I can tell within the first 30 seconds of any verbal communication that someone is who fails to properly introduce him/herself is a physician or not. NPs play an important role in healthcare delivery, but the gap in medical knowledge is apparently obvious to any physician.

[yanzhex]

These programs are a joke. There are NP schools are diploma mills that require NO bedside experience, completely ONLINE, and have close to 100% acceptance. Can the same be said for medical school?

[VanMan]

Bob cooked at McDonalds for 15 years and took a 4 month cooking class at his local community college.

Bruce trained as a chef in multiple countries for 4 years, worked as a sous chef for 7 years and is now an executive chef at a 5 star restaurant.

Bob made a video about how he is almost as skilled as Bruce.

[ma-tnlz]

This is super misleading to anyone who doesn’t work in health care. Most people pursuing NP/CRNA don’t have 5 years experience as a nurse. They even have direct nurse to NP now. On top of that, 5-15 years experience as a nurse is just not that conducive to medicine. Why? Because those aren’t 5-15 years spent developing treatment plans, learning about disease and pathophys, treating patients and following their course, learning from treatment mistakes, learning from other physicians. It’s 5-15 years following orders, and it’s typically the same orders involving the same patient population because most people work on the same type of unit for years. Even if a nurse works in the ICU, they are doing the same 20-30 tasks day in and day out. That’s not learning medicine. You would have 5-15 year emts/paramedics becoming ER physicians with this mentality. It’s wrong, it’s foolish, and it’s misleading to patients. This is super misleading to anyone who doesn’t work in health care. Most people pursuing NP/CRNA don’t have 5 years experience as a nurse. They even have direct nurse to NP now. On top of that, 5-15 years experience as a nurse is just not that conducive to medicine. Why? Because those aren’t 5-15 years spent developing treatment plans, learning about disease and pathophys, treating patients and following their course, learning from treatment mistakes, learning from other physicians. It’s 5-15 years following orders, and it’s typically the same orders involving the same patient population because most people work on the same type of unit for years. Even if a nurse works in the ICU, they are doing the same 20-30 tasks day in and day out. That’s not learning medicine. You would have 5-15 year emts/paramedics becoming ER physicians with this mentality. It’s wrong, it’s foolish, and it’s misleading to patients.

[precociousdeathdealer]

Life's most difficult question should I become a doctor or Kylie Jenner

[gzcjzcx]

Implying that MD/DO training/responsibly is even on the same order of magnitude of difficulty as DNP training/responsibility is completely crazy.

[Taylory]

Wow such terrible info. Residency is 3-7 years by the way. And a lot of Med students have to take time off of school to even get into medical school, just like NP. You’re forgetting that residents get formal education and go into specific specialties... while NPs get trained “on the job”

[cjrosse]

As many other physicians have pointed out the comments, this video is misleading. 5-15 years of RN experience? That is by far the exception, not the average NP. Most have less than 2 years. Also RN experience is irrelevant to being a "provider". You don't make medical management decisions as an RN and their pathophysiology and pharmacology are minimum as nursing curriculum's are diluted with nursing theory classes. Sure, they can observe a doctor doing Y in response to X but they likely don't know why. If they do, they don't know the next option and when to not use Y. Nurses know logistics well and they do bring that into NP school but that's something that can be learned quickly and easily as young physicians do all the time.

[breea]

It’s pretty disingenuous to insinuate that NPs and MDs/DOs have similar roles in health care. They absolutely do not. For starters patient load is no where near the same. Neither are the daily hours.

[yeeyee]

If you value your health and your loved ones health, I would advise you to always ask to be seen by a PHYSICIAN = MD or DO

[mamatembu]

Current 3rd, going on 4th year medical student. I had roughly 4000 hours of medical experience during undergrad by working as a CNA and medical scribe before even applying to medical school. Many of my classmates had the same experience if not more. We completed this medical experience while in college finishing our degrees + prereqs which are objectively more rigorous and dive deeper physiologically compared to nursing degrees. A premed without clinical experience applying to medical school is an automatic rejection nowadays. To say that premeds don't have comparable medical experience in undergrad is misleading, we have plenty experience, it is just not built into our degrees.

[muhammadjabr]

No honey, doctors and NPs do not have similar job roles of course

[kumarsukhdeomdphd]

You need to revise your video to correct the part about premed students not getting any experience to medicine. Most premed students have significant clinical experience, in addition to research, volunteering, and leadership that you left off your board.

[joshb]

My biggest issue with NP’s is that many are now receiving their education online. In addition to this I have yet to meet a mid level that claims they have the same Knowledge as a Doc. If I just had to be brutally honest the education of a PA is a lot higher quality although they receive less practicing rights in many states than NP’s. I think this has a breaking point, and many NP’s, PA’s and physicians think it will be a major step back for patient care.