Barton Associates: Are Nurse Practitioners Called Doctors?

What do you call a nurse practitioner? For decades, nurse practitioners and physicians have debated whether an NP with a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) or PhD degree can refer to themselves as a doctor. So, are nurse practitioners doctors? And who gets to decide?Physicians claim NPs calling themselves “doctor” creates confusion among patients. NPs say that physicians shouldn’t have a monopoly on the title if an NP has a doctorate. At the core of the back and forth is the seemingly simple question: Who is a doctor?As you might have guessed, the answer isn’t so cut and dry. Let’s take a deep dive into the facts.What is a Nurse Practitioner?A nurse practitioner (NP) is a nurse with a graduate-level (master’s or doctoral) degree who has advanced clinical training. To become an NP, a person must be a registered nurse (RN), have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), complete a graduate-level nursing program, and pass a certification exam from an NP certification board.During graduate sch...