I get great care and service from the Nurse Practitioner at my Doctors office. Same Doctor 30 years, has had 2 NP’s for about 10 years now and it works rather well.
One of the very best medical practitioners I ever had was a PA. He was part of the Johns Hopkins Healthcare system. He took his time during appointments so I never felt he was rushing me and he always took the time to answer any questions I had. He was very instrumental in helping me lose weight and lower my BP without upping my medication. His name was Dave but I used to call him “Doc Dave”/
But I remember most the time I came down with conjunctivitis. It started on a Sunday night but by Monday morning it was so bad I could barely see. My eye lids were nearly swollen shut but at the same time my eye balls were swollen and big streams of yellow puss streaming out, my whole face was swollen in fact. I called to make an urgent appointment and my niece had to drive me because I couldn’t see to drive.
As soon as Dave saw me and without even examining me, he told me to put my arms up in the air and DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING!!! And to follow him to his office where he proceeded to call first the Wilmer Eye Clinic but when they could see me right away, to an eye specialist not far away.
When I got to the specialists, not one, or two, but three eye doctors examined me with the last and most senior one telling me “a lot of times PA’s or even Dr.’s see conjunctivitis and overreact. But not in this case, this is probably the worst case I’ve ever seen in all my 25 years of practice.” They called it “hemorrhagic conjunctivitis” and wanted to admit me to the hospital to go on IV antibiotics and observation. We ended up compromising that they would give me Rxs for oral and topical antibiotics and a steroid and sent me home with instructions that I had to come back the next day and if wasn’t any better or if any worse, I’d have to be admitted to the hospital.
I did get better but it took a while and the first couple of days I was running a 101 to 103 fever.
I was so glad that my PA Dave recognized just how bad it was and got me into see an eye specialist right away.
Years ago I took a kid to one of those drug store clinics. We thought she had strep throat. The NP on duty did a swab and said she wanted to be sure it was strep before prescribing an antibiotic.
The next day the kid’s throat was really sore. The wife got concerned and insisted we take her to the ER. They wrote her a scrip for antibiotics.
Next day the NP from the clinic called with the test results. Negative for strep. The antibiotics were useless.
Nurse Practitioner 1
Doctor at major hospital 0