OP, I agree with this person. In general, nurse practitioners (NP's) have very little clinical training compared to physicians. Even if an NP worked as a registered nurse prior to becoming an NP, a registered nurse is not trained to do the following: know which labs/tests to order, interpret those tests, make diagnoses, choose the correct medication/treatments. Those are skills that take years and thousands of hours to master. It simply cannot be done in the 500 hours that NPs get during their post-RN schooling. If one does the math (500 hours/40 hours a week) = 12.5 weeks. An NP has a total of 12 weeks (so 3 months) of training in the above skills before seeing patients.

Meanwhile, physicians get minimum 15,000 hours of hands-on training in the above skills before they go out and take care of patients. (That's 15,000 hours/40 hours a week = 375 weeks = 7 years.) OP, your health is one of the most important things. I highly recommend always seeing a physician (MD or DO) only. I think most people would much rather entrust the health of themselves and their loved ones to a person with minimum 7 years of training rather than to a person with only 3 months of training.