⚠️ SICKCARE — Part IV: The Clinician’s Dilemma (Healing Inside a System That Depends on Recurrence)
Most clinicians didn’t enter healthcare to manage recurrence. They came to help people heal. Yet many now practice inside systems that reward throughput, compliance, and return visits more than resolution. This reflection explores the quiet dilemma clinicians face—trying to do meaningful healing work within structures that depend on patients not fully getting better.
Most clinicians didn’t enter healthcare to manage recurrence. They came to help people heal. Yet many now practice inside systems that reward throughput, compliance, and return visits more than resolution. This reflection explores the quiet dilemma clinicians face — trying to do meaningful healing work within structures that depend on patients not fully getting better.
⚖️ The Invisible Hierarchy: Why PT and Nursing Still Aren’t Considered “Professional Degrees” — and Why That Needs to Change
Physical therapists and nurses are trusted with lives, autonomy, and complex clinical decision-making—yet remain excluded from the “professional degree” classification in U.S. education policy. This invisible hierarchy shapes pay, policy, prestige, and power in ways most clinicians never see but feel every day. This reflection explores how outdated definitions quietly reinforce inequity in healthcare—and why redefining professional status isn’t about ego, but about agency, respect, and the future of care.
Physical therapists and nurses are trusted with lives, autonomy, and complex clinical decision-making—yet remain excluded from the “professional degree” classification in U.S. education policy. This invisible hierarchy shapes pay, policy, prestige, and power in ways most clinicians never see but feel every day. This reflection explores how outdated definitions quietly reinforce inequity in healthcare—and why redefining professional status isn’t about ego, but about agency, respect, and the future of care.