The Texas Medical Association (TMA) has filed a petition to intervene in a Travis County lawsuit brought by Texas Nurse Practitioners and two individual nurse practitioners against the executive directors of the Texas Medical Board and the Texas Board of Nursing, the association said in a Nov. 5 statement.
The case, McCoy v. Carlton, challenges Texas laws that govern how nurse practitioners may perform certain medical acts. TMA said it is seeking to intervene in order to defend those laws alongside the defendants.
According to the statement, the challenged laws expressly exclude the practice of medicine from the definition of professional nursing and require physician delegation and supervision for nurse practitioners to perform certain medical acts. TMA said the Legislature has concluded that such delegation and supervision are necessary to protect the health care of Texas patients, a judgment the association said it strongly shares.
“The Texas Medical Association is joining the lawsuit in support of the defendants, because we strongly support the legislature’s judgment that the challenged laws are necessary to serve the best interests of patients – to whose welfare TMA and our members are committed,” said TMA President Bradford W. Holland, MD.
Holland said the case is about who has the right to practice medicine in Texas, which he said is directly related to the quality of the medical care provided. He said Texas law is clear on the point, stating that only physicians issued a license to practice medicine by the Texas Medical Board are authorized to practice medicine in the state, and noting that the Nursing Practice Act explicitly defines professional nursing to exclude the practice of medicine.
In the statement, Holland said nurse practitioners may perform certain medical acts only under a physician’s delegation and supervision, and that doing so without them constitutes the unauthorized practice of medicine under Texas law. He added that the challenged laws have one basic purpose: to help ensure that patients who receive these services are properly cared for.
TMA describes itself as the largest state medical society in the nation, representing more than 60,000 physician and medical student members through 110 component county medical societies across Texas. The association said its key objective since 1853 has been to improve the health of all Texans.
The statement did not say when the court might act on the petition for intervention.