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| Nurses could soon be trained as junior doctors
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| Wednesday
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NURSES could soon be trained as junior doctors, prescribing drugs, performing minor day surgery and colonoscopies to cope with a national shortage of medical professionals.
A report to be released today urges both state and federal governments to follow the UK and US, who have already begun retraining their nurses.
They have performed minor surgeries and ordered CAT scans and X-rays.
It comes after a survey of junior doctors found they are stressed, working up to 100 hours a week.
One in three self-prescribe medications including potentially addictive drugs.
The report by health workforce management consultants Kronos suggests nurses could help ease some of the strain.
It warns there will be a shortage of 40,000 nurses in just two years.
The report predicts 90,000 nurses will retire by 2020, while more will leave due to dissatisfaction with their careers.
Kronos chief Sharon Lowry said incentives were needed to retain nurses.
But doctors yesterday attacked the idea of nurses taking over their duties.
"If someone wants to be a doctor they need to be medically trained, it takes years of training to be a good doctor," NSW AMA vice president Dr Michael Steiner said.
A drug lobby group yesterday called for doctors to undergo drug testing before they are allowed to operate on patients or undertake other tasks which could endanger patients lives.
"Emergency departments are already stretched to breaking point," Alcohol and Other Drugs Council chief David Templeman said. "You don't need other factors or risk involved that could have devastating consequences."
And the Australian Nursing Federation blamed a doctor turf war for the stress that junior doctors were under.
ANF secretary Ged Kearney said nurse practitioners could take a huge load off junior doctors if they were allowed to order blood tests, X-rays, fluid for drips and antibiotics. Some public hospitals were already employing nurses to do this.
"The Australian Medical Association is always throwing out these horror stories but they are never putting up solutions," Ms Kearney said.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon has already foreshadowed shifting some medical tasks from doctors to nurses in general practice.
A survey of junior doctors has found 38 per cent self-prescribed medications including one in 10 who prescribed their own anti-depressants. Seven per cent self-prescribed sleeping pills such as benzodiazepines which can be addictive. source
How to Become a Nurse |
posted by blogger @ 18:47
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