Texas' nearly 7,000 nurse practitioners and about 4,500 of their nursing colleagues with advanced training say the state needs to unshackle their talents by updating a 23-year-old law that imposes "unnecessary restrictions" on their treating of patients.

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Alexia Green, professor of nursing and dean emeriti at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center, said a recent study by the federal Institutes of Medicine recommended that "nurses should be allowed to practice to the full scope of their" education and training. But she said that the coalition of nurse groups stopped short of urging that the advanced nurses be allowed to practice -- and prescribe -- independently, without supervision by a doctor.

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