Nurse practitioner needs help differentiating anemia

💬 comments

Medical students are expected to understand basic medicine before graduating. Not so for midlevels!

I remember being lectured extensively about all things anemia during the second year of medical school, ranging from the pathophysiology, etiology, and treatment to basic clinical skills like how to interpret a CBC and differential. By the time the USMLE exams rolled around medical students would have to know these things cold. No practicing physician, let alone a fourth-yest medical student who is worth a damn, would need to refer to a chart to differentiate the basic types of anemia. Anyone with a semi-developed clinical acumen would *know* just by having the basic skills necessary to interpret a CBC. Considering how common anemia is due to the myriad number of things that can cause it, it's one of those pathologies that you would expect any practitioner to understand before being allowed near a patient. I guess that's not the case for midlevels. Would you want to be seen by a nurse practitioner who still needs a chart to understand basic medicine?