Some elements of superiority in nurses to doctors

When you visit a clinic, you may make a conversation with a nurse. In some cases especially in an inpatient care, you have more time to be taken care of by a nurse than a doctor. Indeed, a physician is usually too busy to spend enough time for each patient. At lease in some regions, however, nurses are superior to doctors in providing treatment.

In this article below, five topics are introduced in which nurses are more skillful than doctors. As each content is supported by a medical study, they are reliable to some extent. But, they depend on the circumstances you live.

The Conversation: Five things nurses are really good at – and sometimes better than doctors

Generally speaking, nurses are better at taking a minor manipulation. They have a wealth of experience in blood exam, taking a bandage, and enema. In Japan, some physicians working at an emergency unit have a special ability at securing the blood vessel of a patient at a shocked status. But most doctors cannot match the nurses at surgery in this skill. I am not sure Japanese nurses are good at getting things out of children's ear.

Administration and management are also regions in which nurses are dominant. They are familiar with group dynamics. Nurses are advantageous in constructing an effective team to conduct something in a structural manner. Many multidisciplinary teams in a hospital are administered by a leader nurse. In Japan, however, some doctors dislike being led by a nurse. As well, some nurses do not want to take leadership.

In Japan, nurses are not allowed to prescribe medical drugs. On the other hand, making inpatients in a psychiatry unit take prescribed drugs is staff nurses' responsibility. Psychiatric patients sometimes refuse to take the pills for some reasons. In the administrative scheme of admission, medical staffs can make patients take the drug against their will. Nonetheless, forced injection or tube feeding is the last resort. Nurses persuade patients to accept the treatment. They confirm that patients have evidently swallowed the pills. It is a tough task in some case both for the staff and the patient.

I am not certain why a supportive relationship between patients and nurses is not mentioned in the article above. At least in Japan, many patients feel relaxed to speak about their suffering to a nurse than a doctor. Since doctors tend to take a critical attitude to patients, some patients hesitate to become honest about their daily habits. Nurses have sophisticated skills of active listening. It is a great advantage of Japanese nurses, I believe.