 Hey guys, so today's video has been highly highly requested and I get tons of question on it And I'm going to be kind of comparing and contrasting nurse practitioners or NPs to Medical doctors or MDs. I get a ton of people that ask me, you know Should I become an MP or should it become an MD or what's the difference or if I once I'm a nurse is it best to go To med school afterwards to become an MD or go to NP school to become a nurse practitioner And so I'm gonna kind of talk about these things in this video And I'm also going to do a little disclaimer. This is in my experience what I have learned now This information may vary state to state. It may vary hospital to hospital So this is just what I have personally experienced and what I know for my own knowledge It may not apply to everywhere else. So I'm going to say right off the bat in my personal opinion if you are a nurse and You're looking to further your education to become an advanced practice Personnel like a nurse practitioner or a medical doctor I recommend going the NP route because one if you go to nursing school and you're a nurse That's already four years of your schooling You're gonna go back to NP school Which is usually typically two to three years and it's usually your master's degree or you get your doctorate And then you're gonna have you know some sort of kind of residency training period when you're done But that is six years total of school and then like the residency versus if you've already gone to four years Of nursing school and then you want to go back to med school you're gonna have to take some courses again and to apply to the med school and then you're gonna have to take your NCAT and then you're gonna have to do four years of med school and then you're gonna have to do your two to Eight nine years of residency depending on the job you choose and if that's what you want to do That's great, but I think as far as from a most economical I don't think that's the right word I guess from the quickest and cheapest way To becoming an advanced practice person. I would go the nurse practitioner route That's just my personal opinion again. It may be different for you guys I think it's a lot easier once you're a nurse to apply to nurse practitioner school Then it is to go back trying to take those like organic chemistry and weird courses They require for med school in order to take your MCAT and be prepared prepared for your MCAT Okay, so now some differences. This is what I know from my personal experience So at the hospital I'm at we have two daytime hospitalists Which are the doctors that oversee the care of the patients in the hospital We have a nurse practitioner and we have an MD and the nurse practitioners cannot take ICU patients Now there are intensive care nurse practitioners But where I'm at the NPs just take care of them at surge patients And then the MDs have some at surge some ICU patients So the MDs are allowed to take care of a little bit higher level of care at the hospital I'm at now when you're a nurse practitioner you can specialize just like a doctor You could be a family nurse practitioner. You could be a pediatric nurse practitioner You could be a NICU neonatal intensive care nurse practitioner. There are so many different types But where I'm at they just take care of med surge patients I know in Arizona where I originally am from nurse practitioners can own their own practices Just like doctors can't so if you want to open up a woman's health clinic Or you want to open up a family practice clinic Or you want to work at like the Walgreens walk-in clinic where you give flu shots and do Many assessments or if you want to work in an urgent care you can do that You can own your own practice and order your supplies and do the business aspect of that and run your own practice Just like doctors can now I think that very state-to-state again I only know for the states that I have lived in I would say if you want a kind of an Easy summary at comparing nurse practitioners and MDs is that nurse practitioners? Can pretty much do a lot of the things that MDs can do but to a little bit Less acuity I don't know like Like I have heard that like emergency nurse practitioners kind of get stuck more with doing the you know Patients that's come in with lacerations or broken arms or flus and colds and you know kind of more minor things Versus if a big trauma came in you would have an MD there who is overseeing the whole thing Nurse practitioners can be it kind of individualized But they also could work under a doctor depending on the hospital that they're in as well I also get a lot of people that ask me like what's my role in Relationship with the nurse practitioners in the hospital and my role is that they are the hospitalist I am the nurse and if my patient's Status changes something's going on or I notice an error or they need a medication or their pain is increasing Whatever it is I go to the nurse practitioner just like I would go to the doctor and I say hey You know patient in this room that has this diagnosis all of a sudden is feeling shortness of breath These are their vital signs like I do the same exact thing that I would do to a doctor There's no Difference the only difference is if I am taking care of an ICU patient I know that I'm going to be calling the MD because the nurse practitioner does not oversee those patients if you want more Information on NPs and MDs for your particular state. I would look that up on the internet I cannot give you guys, you know every single information for every single state out there But I hope this kind of gives just a broad overview and kind of my personal opinion on it again Everyone's different everyone situations different and so you got to do what's best for you But thank you guys for watching this video make sure you give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel And I will see you guys next time