Nurse practitioners and the growth of palliative medicine.

As Americans live longer they are likely to suffer from chronic, life-limiting illness. Because there are not enough hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) trained physicians to care for these people, there have been recent calls to increase the number of HPM trained physicians. We, however, believe that greater involvement of nurse practitioners (NPs) is a step in remedying this deficit. The philosophy and culture in which nurse practitioners are trained make them ideal clinicians to provide excellent palliative care. In addition, NPs are not only numerous, they can provide care that is on par with that provided by physicians. Removal of barriers to NP practice and increasing the quality of their palliative care education/training needs to occur in order to make this suggestion a reality.