Nurse Practitioners and the Problem of Discounting
This paper provides a critique of Martin & Hutchinson’s 1999 article “Nurse practitioners and the problem of discounting”. The overall goal of the research is to examine the ways in which nurse practitioners perceive the way in which they are treated by other healthcare professionals. Although Nurse Practitioners provide important services to patients, help keep down the cost of care for everyone, and are highly trained medical professionals, they are often subject to “discounting”, which is a collection of behaviors and attitudes that they believe indicates a lack of respect for their contributions by other professionals. This paper examined the types of behaviors that nurse practitioners consider to constitute discounting as well as the ways in which nurse practitioners can act to reduce their feeling that they are not respected by others. Thus the paper includes both a purely academic or investigative element as well as an advocacy element.
