What is a nurse? A nurse practitioner is a nurse trained to treat certain medical conditions without the direct supervision of a doctor. What does this mean for hospitals and clinics in this time of changing healthcare dynamics, with a shortage of GPs and hospitals looking for alternatives to fill the gaps? Professional nurses have had a short history across the entire spectrum of medical history. They have had a difficult path to becoming who they are today and to the future of the practice. Thelma Ingles helped pioneer professional nursing in the 1950s at Duke University. She worked alongside Eugene A. Stead Jr., MD, to help lay the foundation of what professional nurses would become. They designed the curriculum to expand what a nurse was taught to understand the basics of testing and taking patient history. At Duke, they envisioned a new healthcare professional who would take the place of a physician in routine care performed by a physician in a hospital setting. Experts had already predicted the future sho...