NSP - 1

How do a specialist care 20+ patient without help from resident doctor/medical officer ?

Unlike some big hopsital with trainning post - small hospital could hardly get any medical officer to work with. Even in hospital with 500 beds like my ex-employer has, attracting resident doctor to join is a matter of luck. The trainning post in Taiwan are so available even the prestige university hospital couldn't hire enough resident doctor. Approximate 15 years ago, there was a few hospital which was rich enough to get some prestige specialist to work in but unable to attract resident doctor as no trainning post was available(the hospital was newly setup and pending evalution). What they did was getting nurse to act as para-resident. Those nurses were named as nursing specialist a.k.a NSP. Since then, the job of NSP had started to flourish.  My home univerisity hospital was very against such idea and refused to set up such post. Later as the univeristy hospital expanded and unable to recruit new resident, they gave in and started to hired/trained such nursing personel.

The job/duty of NSP varies, some acted like a true resident, some acted like medical secretary. Frankly said, some of their duties were beyond the legal duty as a nurse. However the lack of medical resident had made the demanding of NSP risen. Last year, the bill of NSP act was passed and the NSP had become legal. The nursing specialist however is unlike those clinical nursing specialist in the US. It is more similiar to nurse practitioner. The requirement is less - unlike their counter part in the US, they don't need a master degree. All they need is a training in a certified training facillity for 6 months and passed a national examination ( MCQ - no oral). There is currently 4 NSPs in our hospital and none of them were certified yet.....none of them work under me, frankly said, I had 5-10 patient at any time and I could handle them with no stress....