Heh, could be. But, you've got to keep one thing firmly in mind when it comes to nurse:intern interactions: the average intern hears 6 pieces of bullshit from a nurse for every piece of important, accurate information.

Next to a July intern, a confident seasoned nurse is the most dangerous person in the hospital.

So you're saying, that because sales stats show young people didn't buy very many cars during the worst recession since the Depression, that young people don't want cars?

That's like saying teenage boys don't really want pussy because they can't get any. Your entire post is one bitter rationalization of how you don't really want the things you don't have money to buy.

Nice touch tossing in the ad hominem racism attack at the end there.

I hope tomorrow is a happier day for you.

[Snowden] will be shown to be a hero, this decade's Cindy Sheehan.

Huh. Interesting. I must've missed the "Cindy Sheehan is a hero" memo. At least one of us is out of touch.

4 decades ago the US landed a man on the moon. They couldn't do that today - heck we couldn't even get a man into low earth orbit today. So being 4 decades behind the US space program doesn't sound like a bad thing.

The US could put a man on the moon fairly easily, and soon.

We just choose not to, because it's expensive, and as a nation we've judged that there's no point in going there for an afternoon of tourism. Especially considering our reduced tolerance for the risk of a blow'd up spacecraft and messily killed astronauts, risks that were easily accepted in the 1960s.

China's still in the "tourism is a useful learning experience" stage with expendable human cargo.

I know it's Slashdot-fashionable to downplay US abilities and stature in the world, but don't conflate the different goals and attitudes into a statement on capability.

Uh, they have a licensed pharmacist right there to analyze the results, in the rest of the world a pharmacist can basically do everything an NP can do because they have to know medicine and pharmacology to do their job.

As a physician, every time I read something like this, I think ... when the day comes that people get their "free" and "efficient" healthcare from the "friendly" and "responsive" NPs and other midlevels who "spend more time with me" and "empathize", they are going to get exactly what they deserve.

Kind of like that old saw about people getting the government they deserve. You're going to get the health care you deserve. The notion of a pharmacist making a diagnosis of anything based on blood work is just so far out into the realm of absurd that it all I can do is shake my head.

Consider the possibilty that you don't know what you don't know.

Medical specialty board certification doesn't work that way.

It is not (NOT!) required to practice medicine.

State licensure and credentialing by each facility is required to practice medicine.

Board certification for many specialties is not even possible until the physician is 2 or 3 years out of residency training. Of course they are working and practicing in the specialty during that time. These physicians are usually referred to as "board eligible" because they're in the examination process.

There are many phsyicians in all specialties who are not "certified" by their respective specialty boards. They may have been unable to pass the exams. They may have never bothered to take the exams. They may have been certified previously, but chosen not to pay the high fees and jump through the hoops (many of which are silly) to recertify. They can still practice medicine. There is something of a growing stigma to not being board certified, but it isn't unheard of.

Full disclosure: I'm a physician, certified by my specialty board. I value board certification and think it means something when it comes to the competence of a physician. But it's not the end all, be all.

My specialty's board can be an expensive pain in the ass. More than once I've wished I could just give them the finger and get certified by a competing organization ... but there is no competing organization.

It continues to astonish me to hear (presumably) smart people parrot this damn lie of statistics.

"The US has worse infant mortality than Cuba" and variations of that theme.

Never mind that a premature infant that dies within 24 hours in Cuba is marked in the "stillbirth" column. Never mind that a 25 week preemie who dies despite extraordinary NICU care in a US hospital is marked in the "infant death" column.

Yeah, our "infant mortality" is worse - because we count them as infants and not stillbirths!

Never mind reality. Never mind facts. Let's just parrot the same statistical LIE that advances whatever argument you emotionally favor.

Squaaawk! Infant mortality! Ssquaaak! Cuba! Squaaaaaaaaawk!

Goodbye /.

I just can't keep picking through the blatant ad stories, totally irrelevant junk, shockingly incompetent editing ...