Has an appointment with nurse practioner on Friday...

I keep seeing nurse practitioners in most offices. I don't know if it's because I'm on Medicare but that was my thought.

🧊wotitdo🧊 : it's because 'there is a doctor shortage'. Mostly it's because 'it's cheaper and most people don't even notice'.

if they're less patronising and stupid than most GPs?

they might be.

I prefer the nurse practitioners or here we have Physicians Assistants. However, after my recent stint in the hospital, most are pharmacy trained.....treating the symptoms, not the root of the problem

found most (if not all doctors I've had) really only seem to know the "drug solution" to anything.

And mostly "long term, possibly lifelong use of drugs".

exactly

been able to talk somewhat about not going that direction with the NP though. Which is nice. Still, it seems that a lot of the advantages I saw to begin with, aren't really there any more.

same with GPs here - seems like they are very reluctant/don't know how to investigate the underlying cause of anything. First and best solution to everything is mask the symptoms and hope it goes away on its own.

a lot of that has to do with the fact that the "12 minute interview" isn't even 12 minutes any more. They schedule every 10 minutes, and that simply can't be contact time, unless they allow themselves to fall back.

Every 15 minute appointment booking, can allow for 12 minutes of contact time, without falling back, but we're now down to about 7 minutes of contact time, and that's really only good for "do we need to do any tests, do we need to refill any medications?" type appointments.

indeed; very similar here.

it's bad medicine to practice in that way, but they all say "they have to."

Nurse practitioners are often more attentive than doctors!

claricedesign : it does seem that way...