The critical differences in roles and responsibilities between doctors and nurses are of great importance to the functioning of a hospital setting. Doctors have more responsibility, knowledge, and autonomy concerning diagnoses, treatments, prescriptions, and surgeries whereas nurses take care of direct patient care activities such as administering medications, providing emotional support for patients/families, taking vital signs and collecting medical information. By understanding their respective roles in the hospital environment both doctors or physicians can make well-informed decisions regarding patient health while nurses can provide high-quality direct patient care.

We all know there’s no shortage of both doctors and nurses when it comes to providing medical care, but do we actually understand their roles in the hospital setting and how each of them fits within a healthcare team? In this article, we explore the critical differences between these two professions and analyze the distinct roles that they play in a medical environment.

Doctors are primarily responsible for diagnosing and treating patients’ medical conditions. They also provide guidance to patients and their families on maintaining good health, managing chronic conditions, and making lifestyle choices that promote wellness. Nurses play a vital role in supporting doctors in these activities, as well as providing direct care to patients.

Nurses are typically responsible for tasks such as taking patient vital signs, performing basic laboratory tests, administering medications, and providing education and support to patients and their families. In many cases, nurses serve as the primary point of contact between patients and the healthcare team. This ensures that essential information is relayed between all members of the team in a timely manner.
Differences in Education Levels

There are significant differences in the education and training of doctors and nurses. Doctors must complete an accredited medical degree, which typically takes four years to complete, followed by a residency program lasting three to seven years. Nurses must complete an accredited nursing program, which typically takes two to four years to complete.

Doctors are required to complete a more extensive educational program than nurses and therefore have more responsibilities in the hospital setting. They are responsible for diagnosing patients, prescribing medication, and performing surgery. Nurses provide patient care, including taking vital signs, administering medication, and assisting with diagnostic testing.
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Widal test is one of the most commonly and frequently used method in clinical laboratories that may be used to make a presumptive diagnoses of enteric fever, commonly known as typhoid fever. widal test is not longer reliable in most developed countries like the United states due to low prevalence of typhoid, access to safe drinking water and good laboratory practice. But this method is still in use in many developing countries where enteric fever is endemic . typhoid fever or enteric causes a major public health challenge that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality in many developing countries.
enteric fever is life threatening conditions caused by infection with the bacterium salmonella typhi and S .paratyphi. enteric fever is usually transmitted through food and drinks contaminated with fecal materials. Enteric fever is associated with symptoms that may include high fever, fatigue, abdominal cramp, headache and rose spot.early diagnosis and treatment of enteric fever are important to avoid serious complications that include intestinal bleeding also known as perforation.
In developed countries like US and china, testing for enteric fever usually involves series of laboratory procedures like blood culture to detect the bacteria during the first period or week of fever. other test like stool, urine or bone marrow culture may also be performed.
Salmonella enterica subsp. serotype typhi is the causative agent of typhoid fever. currently, different types of diagnostic techniques are used in the endemic areas, but isolating the actual ethological agent from stool, urine and blood is more reliable means of confirming an infection.
In developing countries like Nigeria, widal slide agglutination test is the common serological test to diagnose typhoid fever. the world health organisation (WHO) has stated that "widal tests should not be use as a diagnostic tool for typhoid". It suggest that a blood culture before initial antimicrobial therapy remains the best diagnostic method of choice, although isolation of salmonella from the bone marrow is the world standard method for confirming a typhoid fever.
Still, millions of Nigerians are being misdiagnosed with typhoid due to the rapid use of widal test as a diagnostic tool. the danger of incorrect diagnosis of typhoid fever is that the symptoms of typhoid or enteric fever are difficult to distinguish from other hemorrhagic fever like malaria and yellow fever.
Widal test had a low sensitivity and negative predictive value; it also had very low specificity and positive predictive value. It might be due to cross-reacting antibodies from other enterobacteria. Low specificity means patients might be suffering from other causes of diseases and low PPV value means majority of those who tested have disease are not truly diseased by the suspected cause that is one of the reason why widal is not recommended in many developed countries.


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