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 Provided by Clinician 1
As promised, I thought long and hard about how we could increase our visibility as NPs and PAs, especially when it comes to being thought of as a solution to the primary care shortage. Again, this becomes so much more important because of the belief by many who don’t know us well enough that there are duties only physicians can do. Thus, the only way to get more primary care to the people that need it is to produce more physicians. If you have not read the first corresponding blog to this one, it can be found here.
So what can we do to become visible instead of invisible to the many policy makers and others making decisions about who exactly will be delivering primary and possibly all types of care in the future?
To make a real difference, we need to become more visible. We can not leave it up to “others” or our associations. Not this time. It’s too much work and too important. Plus if real numbers of APCs respond to much of what’s written the writers will start asking for PA and NP representatives. Why? Because they know we care,have something to offer and are reading, writing and care.
How To Make That Crucial Difference
Start by reading and answering the many articles written in the lay press. Write back. Write a letter to the editor and better yet, invite them to interview you next time. If that’s too much, post a comment to the article you just read. Even if it’s on the swine flu or teenage health, comment and write. Next, watch what the New England Journal, JAMA, the nursing journals and other widely read scientific publications are saying about healthcare reform and respond to it. They will publish PA and NP comments about things they wrote or roundtables they held. Policy makers read these comments. Also watch for articles on the well read health blogs. I have been posting for over a year about NPs and PAs on the Wall Street Journal Health Blog and the NY Times Health Blog. I am the PA they know that they will hear from and that I will remind them NPs and PAs are great. Many scientific magazines have health blogs as do many of the larger metropolitan newspapers.
Lastly, we must write our legislators about what we do and how we can help. Nothing is more impactful than a typed and dated letter from someone in their district or State who has a vote. Nothing. Same for a well thought out and signed email. What can you send to them or say? Tell them that NPs and PAs can and do provide primary care and that we do it at very high quality. That both professions have been doing it That it costs the system less to train us and that both professions are ready to work together to improve the health of our nation. If you personally provide primary care, tell them what you do.
The American College of Clinicians just came out with an excellent position statement on the use of PAs and NPs in primary care which you can access here. If you would like, copy and paste this statement into your letter.
The main thing is for all of us to start being visible whenever the opportunity arises and to say whenever we can that both PAs and NPs can play a big part in the solution to our primary care delivery problem. Don’t bad mouth physicians or any other healthcare professionals and when commenting, act as professionally as possible. But the truth is the truth and we should never be afraid to say it.
Let’s not look at this crisis two years from now and wish we did something. Take 30 minutes out and send a few emails, join a blog on health, respond to articles. If each of us spends a few minutes a week, we can have a larger effect than any other thing we can do.
Also check the posts on Clinician 1 every few days. I promise, we will always alert you about things to respond to.
Dave 
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