Understanding educational pathways for NP, PA

parentologist
Sat, 29 Jan 2022 02:52:56 +0000

Beyond the 6 week rotation in pediatrics in medical school, pediatricians have 3 years of intensive pediatrics training at about 80 hours/week (used to be 100 hrs/wk). That means the equivalent of six years of 40 hr/wk full time training solely in pediatrics, all after 4 years of college and 4 years of medical school, the last two years of which are also done at 80 hours a week of clinical training. They have weekly outpatient clinic training, and months of training in child development, child psychiatry, eating disorders (often dual covered in both gastroenterology and psychiatry), plus many, many other areas, inpatient and outpatient. They are FAR more knowledgeable than are NPs in any aspect of pediatrics that you could imagine. But patients and parents don’t have any way of knowing this - only the pediatrician knows this (and the NP who is starting out and quickly comes to realize this).