Doctors and nurses

The current cohort of preregistration house officers (PRHOs) looks particularly miserable. What's up docs? Too early for exam pressures, mostly too young for mortgages, and too newly qualified to remember sleep deprivation. Former nurse turned PRHO Wicce St-Clair Gray has some answers. “Many doctors feel deskilled and belittled by senior nurse cover. Medicine is the new working class. We're working with our hands for hourly pay. Nurses have intrinsic value, worth, and status. Doctors? None of the above.”

Wicce was speaking at a meeting of the young fellows committee, open section, and student members' group of the Royal Society of Medicine earlier this month, provocatively titled “The rise of the nurse is the fall of the doctor— myth or reality?” Maybe she's on to something. Nurses do seem to be doing it all. They take histories, examine, request investigations, cannulate, interpret results, diagnose, suture, perform minor operations, manage caseloads, and discharge patients. I'm sure I've missed a few other new nursing skills, but you get my drift.