Nurse practitioners, handmaidens no more

148,000 nurse practitioners will have to pick up the slack beginning in 2014, if the Supreme Court allows President Barack Obama’s healthcare law to add at least 30 million people to U.S. hospital, clinic, and doctors' practices already suffering a shortage of physicians. The nurses will likely see more referrals from local emergency rooms—mostly patients requiring follow-up care—as well as those with chronic conditions that need monitoring and those seeking treatment for the minor bumps, bruises, and sniffles of everyday life.