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and most likely higher, depending on how far along in their schooling they are. It's a funny thing regarding med students, though. My only experience in a teaching hospital (where MD's are trained) was brief and it was in nursing school. But basically they (med students) operate outside of, but parallel to, the standard hierarchy in most cases early on in their schooling. So a med student's patient assessments, observations, and such are largely independent of the primary care delivery process (which goes, roughly, Assigned MD --> Physician's Assistant (if applicable --> RN/Respiratory Therapists (they're pretty even when RT takes a direct role in patient care rather than a supporting one) --> LPN --> CNA/Med-tech/Lab-tech/etc..). So a med student, while attached to the team briefly, isn't directly responsible for much other than the procedures they perform (again, my own experience is extremely limited but if you watch TV shows like ER it *seems* that my own experiences line up with those of others). They still make notes on the charts, and they can even order-and-perform procedures with their supervisor's approval, but they kind of exist outside of the delivery chain. I hope that didn't confuse.
But definitely a med student is 'RN or higher' by this particular metric since they're trained in a whole host of things RN's never learn to do (direct wound care, diagnostics, lumbar punctures, and central IV line placement to name just a few). Even when they haven't been trained in those things, a med student has far better theoretical background for analyzing patients than an RN does, although after five or ten years on the job an RN can usually out-diagnose the vast majority of starting med students.
Regarding the literature and statistical data supporting the notion that 'RN or higher only!' is preferable, the majority of the linkage between improved patient outcomes and higher-skilled contact seemed to stem from early detection of condition changes. For example, a patient with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) who only had RN's interact with her would have a higher probability of a pending arrest or critical event being detected and dealt with before it became life-threatening. The actual delivery of care didn't seem to correlate positively in favor of the RN's (actually, if I remember correctly, it was slightly pushed in the other direction since each member of a team like I outlined above (RN+LPN+CNA) would be able to specialize in specific techniques and deliver superior direct care, whether it was ambulatory assistance for post-surgical patients, or dealing with combative patients, or those with dementia, etc..).
The 'RN only' approach was very much a 'one size fits all' approach in a literal sense, and while cooperation between nurses did occur frequently (one nurse may be better at placing IV lines, for example, and would often be called on by her co-workers to fill that role when dealing with a person who had particularly difficult veins) there was a chance that everyone would be too busy to help out, or that someone possessing that particular skill wasn't working at that particular time, leaving someone like me (who wasn't great at IV placement) to try an extra two or three times before succeeding. The plus is that the 'floor' of care quality is set at the minimum standard of an RN, which is to say it's definitely higher than that which a non-skilled person would be expected to deliver. But the downside is that everyone you see when you're in a hospital with this type of policy is going to be paid RN wages - and I already went into how that can, actually, make aspirin cost you $12 apiece when delivered by a nurse. This is, as Doc points out above, most definitely related to the absurd levels of litigation in the USA. It seemed like every three months the hospital I worked at was updating its policies in direct response to a major case going against a health care system which created new definitions of culpability for health care professionals. I'm not saying doctors, nurses, and others involved in health care don't make mistakes and shouldn't be called to answer for those mistakes, but we are well past the point where making your health care workers think about, and address, professional liabilities is a net positive. At this point all we're doing is increasing the costs of health care to cover the liability end, which prompts people to file greater numbers of suits when things don't turn out how they had hoped, and that is the very definition of a vicious cycle.
My own strengths were, oddly enough, social; when dealing with people who were hallucinating, or suffered from dementia, I always got better responses from them than my fellow nurses. Part of it is that I'm 6'2", dark haired, and have a pretty powerful voice (I only ever yelled when dealing with alcoholic dementia) with what many have described as an expressive face. So I could always get people to focus on *me*, rather than whatever it was that prevented them from doing so with others, and more often than not I could help them calm down when they were distressed (which is a very real plus, since hallucinating or demented patients are at extreme risk for falling, and hospital floors aren't exactly soft). I was also the best with little kids; again, I think it's my dark eyebrows, expressive face, and reasonably deep voice.