<p>What really differentiates the two?
What kind of people become nurses and what kind become physicians?
Which is the better career today?</p>
<p>From: <a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/medical-school-admissions-doctor/2011/08/29/should-you-go-to-medical-school-or-nursing-school”>http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/medical-school-admissions-doctor/2011/08/29/should-you-go-to-medical-school-or-nursing-school</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There are pluses and minuses to each career. The choice is highly personal and individual. You really should shadow both nurses and physicians to see which is a better for your personality and life goals.</p>
<p>“Better” is subjective, and it also depends on what kind of nurse you are. This was turning into a book so I’m gonna bullet:</p>
<p>-Nurses can begin practice with just a 4-year BSN, and their clinicals are built into the BSN program. Nurses who want to do more independent primary care can go on to get an MSN or even a doctoral degree, but it’s not necessary, and most nurses never go past the bachelor’s level. Doctors, of course, need 4 years of college + 4 years of med school + 3+ years of internship/residency. So levels of debt are much higher for physicians and nurses start making money sooner.</p>
<p>-On the flip side, though, physicians are paid much better. Primary care physicians average somewhere around $180,000 a year and specialists can make far more than that. A lot of physicians feel pressured into going into specialty care because of the higher pay and the burden of their loans. Also, physicians have to carry malpractice insurance while I believe in most cases nurses are covered by the hospital at which they work.</p>
<p>-Physicians practice independently, and have more autonomy. They can also prescribe medicine. Nurses usually work on a care team with physicians and BSN level nurses are usually directed by them, and they cannot prescribe medicine. My mother is a nurse, and so I grew up around nurses, and most of them have recounted at least one time during which they were directed to do something by a physician that they felt was wrong (clinically, not ethically) but had to do it anyway because the physicians is usually the “boss” of the care team. A physician would rarely have to deal with that. MSN-level nurses do practice more independently and can prescribe medication, but have to do so in partnership or under the supervision of a physician depending on the state.</p>
<p>-Although this is changing with the advent of healthcare reform and/or the rising cost of medical care, most physicians are self-employed. They set up their own practices, or go into practice with a group, and thus set their own business practices and hours and model of care. Most nurses are employed by someone else, be it a hospital, a doctor’s office, a clinic, or something else.</p>
<p>-Most physicians train within one specialty, and moving to a different specialty may take significant retraining, so I don’t get the sense that doctors move specialties very often. At the BSN-level, though, a nurse who gets tired of the OR could go work in the ICU; a nurse who got tired of labor and delivery could go back to med-surg; and a nurse who just wants to get off the floor together could go into telemetry or research nursing. Nurse practitioners usually train for a specific area, but their areas are sometimes a bit broader.</p>
<p>-As for what type of people, it depends. Nurses are overwhelmingly female, while there’s a more even split with physicians these days. Some people choose nursing because they don’t want to spend “forever” in school and want to have a professional, well-paying career earlier. A lot of people choose to be physicians because of the higher level of autonomy one has in directing their patients’ care, as well as the higher perceived prestige of the medical profession. There are also differences in the nursing and medical models of care, too - theoretically, nurses take a more holistic and education-focused approach to care while physicians take a more diagnostic and biomedical approach, but that varies from doctor to doctor and depends on their trainig (DOs, for example, can fall in the middle or even more towards the nursing spectrum. And even MDs who have different opinons or MPHs can be interested in the sociology of healthcare and medicine). Nurses tend to work more closely with, and spend more time with, their patients. And although nurses do have to do paperwork, it’s usually paperwork related to clinical care. Physicians (especially with their own practices) sometimes do a lot of administrative work related to medical reimbursement or patient care plans or hospital privileges; some physicians I know have expressed annoyance with this.</p>
<p>Like I said, better is subjective - it depends on your career goals, preferences, and desires.</p>