Should Nurse Practitioners be Referred to as “Advanced Practice Providers”?

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”1 With all due respect to Juliet (she had a lot on her mind), I disagree. Smell notwithstanding, a “nontulip perennial flowering plant” is not a rose. Likewise, when we nurse practitioners (NPs) are referred to as nonphysician providers, thus describing us as what we aren’t, all we really do is obfuscate. NPs have also been called midlevel providers, a term that cements our place in a hypothetical hierarchy that I believe we were meant to be grateful not to be at the bottom of.

Source: The Journal for Nurse Practitioners - August 2, 2021 Category: Nursing Authors: Donald Gardenier, Cynthia Edwards-Tuttle, Janet Selway Tags: Point/Counterpoint Source Type: research