Dr C is at it again, blaming all the ills of a dumbed down health service on Nurse Practitioners who don’t know their place and who want to play at being doctors. None of which is true of course as Zarathustra’s reply to the post by Seaneen that kicked off the recent round of nurse bashing demonstrates. Hardly a hissy fit at all really if you read the response in full
“The actual answer to the debate is that *some* nurse specialists/practitioners are doing jobs that would be better done by actual doctors…and *some* nurse specialists/practitioners are working well within their competency and adding genuine value to services. The question is how one distinguishes the two, and you can’t do that in the context of a screaming match.”
In fact, what is most noticeable is how far in agreement Z and Dr C are on the points that really matter but…Oh well we have said it before, and no doubt we will say it again.
I am reading “In the Lion’s Court” by Derek Wilson, which is about power, ambition and sudden death in the reign of Henry VIII. The time is 1530 and King Henry, keen to divorce his first wife Katherine wants to marry Anne Bollein. However Pope Clement VII has other ideas and is refusing to grant him an annulment. There are already reformist heresies in the air and one of Henry’s advisors Thomas Moore then Lord Chancellor (and incidentally a leading lawyer of the day) and later to be martyred for his Catholic beliefs had this to say about what he sees as dangerous and heretical thinking coming out of Germany after Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg
“As the soul excels the body, so does the priesthood excel the lay estate. The priest has no equal on earth, for he who brings salvation to princes is greater than princes. The role of the laity (everyone else) is entirely subordinate: to provide for the physical needs of priests, and to defend and protect them.”
He then goes onto say that priests are superior to heavenly powers because God promised something to priests that he did not even promise to angels and anyway the bible refers to priests as angels (Malachi 2:v7) or even as Gods (Psalm 82 vv 1,6). In short
“The superiority of priests to people is not just permitted by Christianity, it is its very soul and foundation.”
If you were to substitute Doctor for priest and Nurse for laity then I think you have the good doctor’s position exactly.
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