Imposter Doctors

Book excerpt: When you experience a medical emergency, you expect to be treated by a licensed physician with expertise in your condition. What happens when you look up from your hospital gurney to find that the doctor has been replaced by a non-physician practitioner with just a small fraction of the training and experience? From the co-author of Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare, the first book to warn of the systematic replacement of physicians, comes Imposter Doctors, an even more frightening exposé of patient endangerment at the hands of for-profit corporate entities and healthcare conglomerates. In the two years since Patients at Risk debuted, the employment of non-physician practitioners has continued to skyrocket. While advocates insist that nurse practitioners and physician assistants are ‘just as good’ as physicians, they are wrong. Despite over fifty years of scientific analysis, there is no conclusive evidence that non-physicians can provide safe and effective medical care without physician oversight. In fact, recent studies have shown the opposite: that the replacement of physicians puts patients at risk. The only cure for today’s healthcare crisis is for patients to become informed about who is providing their care. We must all know the difference in clinician education and training, and demand answers from those who would deprive us of physician-led care. REVIEWS and WORDS OF PRAISE This book is well-written, richly researched, and scientifically based. Imposter Doctors explains how scope expansion has been facilitated by the corporatization of American medicine, and exposes the fallacy of NP/PA and physician equivalency. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about our nation’s healthcare system. --Susan Rudd Bailey, MD, Past President American Medical Association Another frank and hard-hitting discussion from the author of Patients at Risk. While some will likely dismiss this book as aiming to protect the status quo in healthcare, I sincerely hope it creates important conversations about training, qualifications transparency, and public safety. --L Allen Dobson Jr, MD, FAAFP, Editor-in-Chief Medical Economics This follow-up book to Patients at Risk articulates the desperate need for reform to the healthcare system to re-insert physicians as the ultimate decision maker for the sake of patient care. After reading this book, one must ask "will a physician be available to care for me and my family when the need arises?" --Linda Lambert, FAAMSE