[leereeves]

MD education in the US takes so long because students are required to spend four of those eight years studying something other than medicine.

Nurses actually study medicine as undergraduates before graduate NP education, so one could argue that NPs have more education in medicine.

[lotsofpulp]

The problem of NP/PA is not in the design or scalar length of education. It is in the credentialing. MDs have to take MCAT and step exams, which I know weed out many people. From my understanding, there is a relatively very low barrier to entry for NP/PA.

As a side note, the physician credentialing process of the US is far too long.

[leereeves]

I doubt those exams select for skilled medical practitioners any more than leetcode interviews select for productive programmers.

In my own experience, I've seen several very good NPs and several very bad MDs.

> the physician credentialing process of the US is far too long.

Also too expensive and too abusive. It tends to select for people who are willing to put up with almost anything in exchange for the status of being an MD, not for people who are motivated to provide quality care for their patients.

[reducesuffering]

NP/PA programs have entry requirements of 80-90% A’s (3.7 avg), GRE, 1000+ patient care hours and like 4% acceptance rates…

[affyboi]

I don’t know that you can use the acceptance rate as a direct comparison to med school, you have different populations applying to each.

I remember there was a PA that did end up going to med school and took the PA boards (forget what they call it) just for kicks and ended up scoring in the 99th percentile.