Nursing education and practice

Three issues directly influence the relationship between nurses and physicians: the nature of nursing practice, the education of registered nurses, and the American Medical Association (AMA) proposal for registered care technicians. Many conflicts among nurses, physicians, and health care administrators result from nurses' defining their practice in terms of their patients' needs, and nurses may differ from other health care professionals in interpreting those needs. Nursing education programs--in hospital schools of nursing, community colleges, and baccalaureate colleges--should focus their programs and objectives so as to prepare their graduates for different health care settings. For example, an associate degree program would emphasize preparation for home health care, long-term care, or acute care. The AMA proposal to create a new nursing category--registered care technologist--complicates rather than helps the relationship between physicians and nurses and confuses the issues of providing patient care. Suggestions are offered for alleviating the nursing shortage and resolving much of the continuing conflict between nurses and physicians.