On February 25, Ohio Academy of Family Physicians President Stan Anderson, MD, sent a letter to David Phillips, CEO of Barnesville Hospital, expressing dismay at the hospital’s signage that identifies two of the health system’s advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) as family practitioners.
Dr. Anderson’s letter states, “A family practitioner is a specialized type of physician. Family practitioners are also known as family practice physicians, family medicine physicians, board certified family physicians, family practice doctors, and family doctors. And in the past few years, the term practitioner has been used less and less as family physician is the preferred term. An APRN could be identified as a family nurse practitioner but is not a family practitioner.”
“APRNs have a unique and important role in health care but have not completed medical school and residency training that affords them the same knowledge, training, experience, and skills as those who have,” the letter continues. “The training of an APRN is more equivalent to a third year medical student than a primary care physician who has completed four years of medical school and a three-year residency program.”
The letter concludes, “The roles of a physician and a nurse are not interchangeable and your misleading reference to APRNs as family practitioners inappropriately blurs the line between the two. Your identification of APRNs as family practitioners unacceptably confuses patients and needs corrected immediately.”
The OAFP submitted a letter to the editor to the Barnesville Enterprise expressing the same concerns.