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To the editor:
I'm a third-year medical student. I am writing to let you know how many of my classmates and I feel about getting into family practice these days.
I attended a family practice conference recently and was approached by a family physician who began telling me that if he were me, he'd "go into some sort of specialty." He said that nurse practitioners were going to practice the bulk of primary care within 10 years, his reimbursements were going down and so on. He acted as if he were a pretty miserable guy.
My fear is that nurse practitioners will, indeed, take over what was historically the family physician's role as the primary care provider for the entire family. I know nurse practitioners now have rights to prescribe narcotics, in some cases, and continue to lobby hard for prescriptive and other privileges, thus taking an even larger slice of the pie away from family practice.
Name withheld by request
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