How to make patients think of the nurse as a doctor?

Have the nursing program give doctorate degrees and start calling the nurses "doctor"?

[O]pponents... say a plethora of professional doctorates will confuse patients and cheapen the prestige of academic doctorates, or Ph.D.s. Universities should not be forced to dole out doctorates to students doing master's level work, as is happening with nursing...

I agree with the opponents. A master's degree is not a doctorate. And I include the J.D. degree and note that no one goes around calling lawyers "doctor." Sometimes I get letters addressing me as "Dr. Althouse," and I invariably regard it as a mistake.