As a family nurse practitioner, I read with interest the recent article in which Julie Appleby and Michele Andrews of the Kaiser Family Foundation discuss the implications of the growing lack of primary care doctors in the U.S. I agree wholeheartedly that an ongoing relationship with a primary care provider is the cornerstone of quality health care.
What brought me up short was the claim that many patients are left to the questionable care of “paraprofessionals” such as myself and my physician assistant colleagues.
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I am a master’s degree educated professional, having undergone a rigorous educational program, and am a board-certified family medicine provider. I hold a full practice authority license in the State of Illinois, so I do not need or operate under the supervision of a physician.
As the Kaiser Family Foundation itself stated in a 2015 brief, “Tapping Nurse Practitioners to Meet the Rising Demands of Primary Care:”
“NPs are registered nurses who have completed master’s degrees or higher-level nursing degrees. Close to 90% of all NPs are prepared in primary care. Primary care NPs are significantly more likely than primary care physicians to practice in urban and rural areas, provide care in a wider range of community settings, and serve a high proportion of uninsured patients and other vulnerable populations. Studies show that NPs can manage 80-90% of care provided by primary care physicians.”
“In addition, evidence from a substantial research literature shows that primary care outcomes ... are comparable between patients served by NPs and patients served by physicians.”
The number of primary care physicians is indeed dwindling. A key part of the solution is advanced care providers working alongside our physician colleagues.
Kimberly Hogan, Arlington Heights
Invest in neighborhoods, not trips to Mars
What delightful and hopeful insights Dominic Pacyga’s Friday op-ed provides. I, too, grew up in a very similar setting at the nexus of Garfield Boulevard and Halsted Street. Churches, bars, barber shops, 5&10s, grills, bakeries, grocers and funeral homes lined the street from north of 47th to south of 63rd.
Sadly, those same streets today have the look of post-war Berlin. The neglect and abuse of what was once a thriving community should embarrass all responsible.
Doesn’t it tease the imagination to think what would happen if, rather than spend $5 billion on the useless exploration of Mars, the federal government instead seeded intersections like 55th and Halsted — and all the others like it throughout the country — with little startups?
Each intersection gets an instant pop-up, if you will — grocery, hardware, bar/cafe, what have you — something around which these desperate communities could focus and rely on as the neighborhoods try to rehabilitate themselves. Little economic engines strategically placed throughout the city.
They could use the boost — no one on Mars needs the help as much as the people in Lawndale, Englewood, Brainerd, etc.
Food for thought, no?
Dennis Allen, Wilmette
Bidenomics is working
Inflation is down to 3%, less than half of what it was a year ago. Unemployment is at all-time lows, and new infrastructure projects are starting all over the country.
Bidenomics, baby!
Richard Keslinke, Algonquin
