Who Is The Physician Assistant?

The Physician Assistant (PA) and Nurse Practitioner (NP) career fields were the medical fields’ response to the physician shortage that began in the 1960s, but the shortage still exists today. As the population continues to grow, the gap continues to grow as well. Medical schools were having a hard time producing as many doctors that were needed to fill in the gaps in a timely manner, leaving the medical field looking for ways they could have health care providers diagnose and treat patients, but educated in half the time of a doctor. The PA program was then born out of the military. Medical doctors watched as military doctors and medics came back, but they had no formal training except for on-the-job training. The NP program was derived from previous midwifery program. Currently, as the physician shortage is still impending more and more PAs and NPs are being hired to fill in the gaps. This is causing many questions to arise: Are they qualified?, What kind of education do they have?, and Should I feel safe?. Patients want to know that they are getting excellent care, and that their medical providers are qualified to diagnose and treat patients accurately.

When a new resident is admitted, their family provides a history of the resident’s life: their loves, their fears, and their tragedies. As a physician assistant collects and analyzes the medical history and symptoms of a patient with an undiagnosed illness, I analyze the personal histories of the residents at my facility so that I am able to understand the best way to care for them. As a physician assistant collaborates with their supervising physician to provide high quality healthcare to patients, I collaborate with the director of nursing and the other nursing assistants at my facility to improve our residents’ quality of life. As a physician assistant is trusted by their patients and their supervising physician, I am trusted by the families of the residents I care for as their loved ones adjust to life as it changes with the loss of their memory.

This has allowed me to experience what each person’s role in a hospital setting truly is. Both physician assistants and nurse practitioners share a lot of the same responsibilities as a physician, although nurse practitioners are given the flexibility of choosing which specialty they are interested in pursuing. This autonomy is what drew me into this position, which includes a lot of independence within the practice. Over the years that I have worked in healthcare, I have realized that patients need a health care provider who will be an advocate for them, and they also need someone who will truly listen to them in order to help improve their quality of health. The roles and job responsibilities of a nurse practitioner have caught my attention and therefore have made me want to pursue this career

A physician assistant is licensed to do various things. They are licensed to diagnose and treat illnesses and diseases and they are even able to prescribe medications. The responsibilities of a PA are just as high as an actual doctor. Even assisting in surgeries is included, they are obviously required to be under the supervision of a physician. The amount of and how in depth work you can do on a patient is the

Physician Assistants are clinicians practicing in a physician extender role. They are found in almost every medical and surgical area in the U.S. and are appearing in both primary and specialist care settings in Canada. They perform similar tasks to their physician supervisors, including examination, diagnosis, diagnostic testing, treatment, referrals and prescribing. Research shows PAs to be capable of giving care, comparable to that of physicians for similar services.

The role of a physician assistant was created specifically to help adjust for the shortages of physicians. Unfortunately, these shortages are occurring in underserved communities that need readily available healthcare facilities and employees. Physician assistants, are trained to be able to handle a wide variety of health disease, and with a background in public health physician assistants are able to extend the “one provider, one patient” mentality and focus on the community as a whole. PAs not only treat disease, but they also promote health, decreasing healthcare demand through preventive care. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has four foundational health principles that align with the type of care that PAs

Physician Assistants, or PA’s, work directly under the supervision and guidance of other medical professionals, such as physicians or surgeons. Their work includes mainly examining, diagnosing, and treating patients. PA’s typically review the medical history of patients, order tests to diagnose illnesses (such as x-rays and blood tests) and then interpret the results, make a diagnosis and then provide some sort of treatment (such as a cast or sutures), give information and advice to patients and their families, and prescribe medicine when needed. Furthermore, PA’s can work in any area of medicine, including family care, psychiatry, emergency medicine, or elsewhere. PA’s are highly qualified to take care of

In the mid-1960’s, physicians and educators realized that there was a shortage of primary care physicians. In response to this, Eugene A. Stead Jr. , MD, put together the first class of of Physician Assistants , or PA’s, in 1965. This PA program’s duty was not only to help the shortage of primary care physicians, but instead was to help train

According to the U.S News & World Reports, physician assistant rank number four on the ranking of best jobs of 2016. Why? It is because the unemployment rate is 0.2 percent. This is very low compared to national unemployment rate of 5.0 percent as of September, 2016 (Bureau of Labor Statistic, 2016). One of the factor accounted in this is because due to the vast population of United States of approximately 300 million people. With a tremendous number of people, there will also be a tremendous amount of health problem related as there are correlation relationship between peoples’ health and jobs. As a result, half of Unites States fastest growing jobs will be in health care. In addition, American life expectancy has increased drastically from 50 to 80; also, advance medical technical to help with serious chronic treatment helped contribute to this job growth (Anne and Victoria, 2012, Pg. 9).

The enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 brought many changes to the United States health care system. Many Americans that did not have health coverage were finally able to acquire a health plan. Unfortunately, the increased influx of patients with new health coverage affected the clinician-to-population ratio. In addition, aging Baby Boomers have worsened the problem of an overflowing patient population. Currently, the United States faces a shortage of clinicians. Physician assistants (PAs), are licensed health professionals trained under a medical education model that can effectively fill the shortage of clinicians in the nation by providing health services and accommodating the imminent influx of patients.

Physician assistants are professionals that practice medicine under the supervision of a physician. The profession was created in the 1960s because physicians began to notice that there was a shortage of physicians practicing in primary care. To solve for the shortage of physicians, Eugene A. Sted Jr.,MD of Duke University gathered four men who had medical training in the military and created the first class of PAs in 1965.This first physician assistant class graduated from Duke University on October 6th, 1967 and the profession had great support from the medical community and the federal government claiming the PA profession was a “creative solution to physician shortages.”1 Today, there is still

The PA profession has been an important component of the health care system. The creation of PAs in the 1960s was driven by a shortage of healthcare providers. This situation was resolved by using ex-corpsmen coming back from the Vietnam War (PAWorld, 2011). There was an accelerated education for the ex-corpsmen to train them for civilian medicine to provide health care services under the supervision of a physician. The PA training process was thoroughly planned to provide an education similar to a physician’s, to create a physician mindset, and also be trained faster and less expensively than a physician. The accelerated education of a PA has been a pinnacle point because in just two to three years, a PA can immediately start practicing medicine without a residency or fellowship. This makes PAs more desirable and economical for fulfilling the need as healthcare providers.

Think of a moment when you sat down, and the sun beamed on your face as you felt tiny drops of liquid pour down from the sky. You must’ve already concluded that there must be a rainbow in sight. This is a perfect example of why I aim to become a surgical physician assistant. Not because there will be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but because there is a perfect balance in the overall process. As a young girl, I grew fond of helping people. I knew that one day I would want to make a career out of my passion of wanting to help others. The idea of being able to take away someone’s pain impacted my life especially with my experience as an undergraduate student, majoring in biological sciences at the University of California, Davis.

Many people all over the world require medical attention, and at one point in their lives, medicine will make the difference in the quality of their life; however, the issues about costs and resources in healthcare are continually changing in view of an increasing population; as a result, many individuals are left without the needed medical attention. Nonetheless, the Physician Assistant is an excellent strategy to support the many challenges that arise in the medical field, as for the Physician Assistant (PA) has been an “extended” version of the Medical Doctor (MD) since 1965 due to a shortage, and misdistribution of physicians. As an illustration, this report reflects an analysis of the Physician Assistant’s career, and everything involved

The American Academy of Physician Assistants is a nationally recognized society within their discourse community. Physician Assistants are a growing profession in the medical field. Nowadays, people are becoming more aware of the profession but a lot of people are still unsure about what it is a Physician Assistant does. The word assistant can easily throw off a patient and make them think that this professional is nothing but an assistant to the doctor. However, the web page for the AAPA utilizes a myriad of different modes to attract their audience. Through the use of different modes such as visual, aural, and linguistic stimulation, the AAPA effectively engages viewers of this website and successfully contributes to a better understanding