alt Hacker NewsIf nurses are to do more of the work of physicians, nursing education needs to drastically change. Nurses are mostly taught the how of nursing and not the why of medicine. If you look at the curricula of DNP programs, which are often touted as a way to get nurses practicing with lots of autonomy in places where they are short on physicians, they're heavy on nonsense nursing theory and light on things that actually matter like pathophysiology and pharmacology.
We actually do have a better model in the form of physician assistants. They're taught the same kinds of things physicians are taught, just in less depth.
That is the kind of thing makes me wonder how much of "things that actually matter like pathophysiology and pharmacology" can be factored out into the automation land now.
AI isn't perfect, but even loosely scaffolded generalist systems show promise in the field of medicine now. And the alternative isn't some hypothetical "perfect healthcare" - the status quo is often closer to "nurses running near the limits of their competence" or "physicians stretched thin almost to the breaking point".
The fundamental problem of healthcare is that it struggles to scale. The need for well educated, well paid professionals is inescapable. Or, was inescapable? We might be at the point where this can start changing.