As a result of a chronic physician shortage, especially in rural areas, the medical landscape is drastically changing to include more non-physician healthcare providers. [1] This demand for additional medical professionals allows Advanced Practitioner Registered Nurses (APRNs) — a class of registered nurses with additional graduate-level training — increased prescriptive and decision-making authority over patients’ health care than traditional registered nurses. This phenomenon introduces new challenges in the realm of medical malpractice, accountability, and scrutiny that has been, for decades, primarily focused on physicians. In considering questions of accountability for erroneous medical decision-making, a substantive increase in medical authority and jurisdiction over patients’ health needs to be logically accompanied by an increase in legal scrutiny.

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