During the past five years, the number of nurse practitioners in the United States has increased by nearly 40 percent, to 125,000, according to estimates by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. Arizona's rate of growth has been slower in recent years, but since 2000, the number has jumped by 46 percent, to 3,000 practitioners, which is faster than population growth.
The trend is being driven in large part by a shortage of primary-care doctors or general-practice physicians, medical experts say.
Although most nurse practitioners work in settings supervised by physicians, more are striking out on their own, opening and staffing their own clinics apart from doctors. That has generated some controversy in the medical community, as physicians worry about the risk of misdiagnosis if NPs don't work collaboratively with licensed physicians.
