Over the years I have served as both a preceptor and colleague for more than a dozen physician assistants and nurse practitioners. All the while I wondered: are they as good as they seem, and are doctors as indispensable as we’d like to believe? When my daughter became a physician assistant I was forced to respond. I share a small practice with six family physicians. Each of us works closely wi...

The benefits of collaboration in healthcare have been linked positively with higher patient satisfaction, improved patient outcomes, enhanced nursing staff satisfaction, and decreased hospital costs. A sample of nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists affiliated with postgraduate training programs in the state of Texas responded to a survey designed to gather attitudes toward physician-nurse c...

This paper develops a model of the nurse/physician authority relationship presented in an earlier issue of this journal, and responds to criticisms raised against that model in commentaries on that article. Specifically, I examine the discrepancy which exists between medical knowledge and nursing education, and show this discrepancy to be a difference in type, not quality. The implication is th...

PURPOSE The background and methods of an ongoing study to determine the effects of hospital pharmacists' enhanced communication with patients and their community providers are described. SUMMARY The Iowa Continuity of Care study is a randomized, prospective trial enrolling 1000 patients with selected medical conditions admitted to one large Midwest hospital. Patients will be randomized to a c...

BACKGROUND Effective nurse-physician communication is critical to delivering high quality patient care. Interprofessional communication between surgical nurses and surgeons, often through the use of pagers, is currently characterized by information gaps and interprofessional tensions, both sources of workflow interruption, potential medical error, impaired educational experience, and job satisf...

Background: Communication is the key role in the nursing profession. Nurse-patient communication is highly important especially when the patient is a child. Studies indicate inappropriate contact with children in the pediatric wards. This study investigated effect of training on communication skills of nurse with child through small group discussion. Methods: This study is a clinical trial wit...