Nurse practitioners, other professionals among those facing ‘image discrepancies,’

THURSDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) — Professionals’ job satisfaction, performance and pay can suffer when clients don’t understand what they do, according to a new study.

“If people don’t understand what you do, they tend to devalue what you do,” study co-author Michael Pratt, a professor of management and organization at Boston College, said in a college news release. “They don’t understand why you’re making all this money — ‘Why should I pay you all this money?’ is a common question these professionals keep hearing.”

Pratt and his colleagues looked at people in four professions: 24 architects, 13 nurse practitioners, 17 litigation attorneys and 31 certified public accountants. In most cases, these professionals had to educate clients about the type of work they do and to manage “impracticable” and “skeptical” expectations, according to the study in the August issue of the Academy of Management Journal. [Read more…]