Who is going to be YOUR doctor? Part 3

This will be the final installment of this series, I hope...

See parts 1 and 2 to catch up to where we are.

Do we need another "doctor" in healthcare?

Physicians

Physicians are the de facto standard for the medical profession. Despite whatever data comes out about how many people are harmed in medical care, or how many more we should be able to save, as a rule, physicians are good, hard working people who only want to help their patients. As an academic standard, there is no equal in the medical profession.

Now, I think we have already established that the DNP degree does not even come close to the didactic and clinical training of a physician. See part 1 if you do not recall this.

Furthermore, we already have Masters degree prepared NPs, who, if you believe their literature, already provide adequate care in the proper environment. What purpose does advancing the degree to a doctorate serve, unless it is to be called "doctor." I'm not disagreeing with their argument that they need more education. The education needs to be the proper education, though. 40 more hours of nursing theory and practice management does not a clinical doctorate make, if you catch my drift.

Then there is the argument that "well, everyone else is doing it, we have to move to a doctorate as well to keep up!!!!" This argument is based in the fact that many other paramedical professions, such as physical and occupational therapists, pharmacists, and psychologists are now getting doctorates. Problem being, I've yet to hear a PharmD demand to be called "doctor." The only DNP that I know of, purposefully signs her notes "Doctor Nurse, DNP," which is just a bit pretentious, if you ask my opinion, and is quite revealing of the real motives here.

Who is going to teach them?

Ok, my final point. Who is going to teach them?

How did the first DNP get trained? Did he/she make up a curriculum and decide he/she was going to call herself DNP after he/she was done?

In order to train someone to a certain level, there must be someone at or above that level to teach them. Does this make sense?

Look at it this way - you are getting your drivers license. The person who teaches you how to drive has to know how to drive, yes? Same goes in this situation - if there are no DNPs (remember, we are looking at the first one here), who trained the first DNP to be a DNP? I can only come up with two plausible answers: 1. It was a self-proclaimed degree, or 2. He/she was trained by a physician. No other option is valid, and even then, only 2 is really valid, because one cannot train oneself in a field like medicine.

So, who is training all these DNPs? Physicians, or other self proclaimed DNPs? How good will the education be in the second instance?

Who is going to be YOUR doctor? I certainly know which one I am hoping for. For yours and my sake.