Letters
Health services administration Health occupations General medicine
Volume 194 - Issue 6

Whither medicine? The expansion of non-doctor practice

Author:  Brendan F Murphy

Med J Aust 2011; 194 (6): 326-328. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2011.tb02994.x
Published online: 21 March 2011
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To the Editor: I found Van Der Weyden’s editorial “Whither medicine? The expansion of non-doctor practice”1 to be an unduly negative view of the emerging new clinical roles, such as nurse practitioners, in our health system.

To imply, for example, that the access to prescribing rights for nurse practitioners is a significant challenge (rather than a help) to doctors is contrary to the experience of many such implementations of these roles.

I have a clear view of the role of doctors. They should:

Doctors should not continue to provide clinical services that are not a good use of their considerable training and experience. These services, that could be provided by nurse practitioners, include routine monitoring and prescribing (under protocol and medical leadership) of maintenance treatments (such as haemodialysis treatment or routine diabetes review), and simple repetitive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

In my experience, many doctors are bored with these intellectually limited aspects of their practice and find the quality of their clinical life substantially enhanced when given the opportunity to work in partnership with nurse practitioners. Again, in my experience, some tertiary-educated nurses are also bored with their limited clinical roles (still dominated by personal care) and can offer much more to the clinical team by focusing on the higher end of their skill base.

There are clear differences between doctors and nurses in terms of selection process, education and training. However, this does not preclude both professional groups from looking at their scope of practice and focusing on the tasks that best use their expertise, rather than retaining roles based on custom and practice that are no longer relevant.

If doctors embrace and lead the role redesign program, they can ensure that sensible delegations of their clinical tasks to other health practitioners can occur with benefit to all. Resistance and disengagement of doctors will not stop role redesign, as we clearly cannot sustain a health workforce in the future with a staffing model that has not changed materially for 100 years. Resistance and disengagement are more likely to lead to dysfunctional new roles being produced, without the necessary strong relationship with the medical profession required for the best patient care.

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