In a MedSpa, Your Surgeon May Be a Nurse

This is the third installment of The Nurse Will See You Now, a series documenting how the increasing reliance on nurse practitioners is imperiling US patients. Read part one here. Read part two here.

The patient popped a painkiller, a Xanax, something for allergies, another pill for nausea—a pharmaceutical cocktail meant to replace general anesthesia. Thirty minutes later she was on an operating table under the care of Karen Jean Anderson, a nurse practitioner who’d trained for 40 hours with a medical device distributor in performing liposuction. The patient was undergoing a breast augmentation and fat removal, and she was wide awake.