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Q. What is
a Physician Assistant (PA)?
A. Physician
assistants are health care professionals licensed to practice
medicine with physician supervision. As part of their comprehensive
responsibilities, PAs conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat
illnesses, order and interpret tests, counsel on preventive health
care, assist in surgery, and in most states can write prescriptions.
PAs are
trained in intensive education
programs
accredited by the
Accreditation
Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA)
.
Because of the
close working relationship the PAs have with physicians, PAs are
educated in the medical model designed to complement physician
training. Upon graduation, physician assistants take a national
certification examination developed by the National Commission on
Certification of PAs in conjunction with the National Board of
Medical Examiners. To maintain their national certification, PAs
must log 100 hours of continuing medical education every two years
and sit for a recertification every six years. Graduation from an
accredited
physician assistant program and passage of the national certifying
exam are required for state licensure.
Q. How did the
Physician Assistant profession begin?
A. In the
mid-1960s, physicians and educators recognized there was a shortage
and uneven distribution of primary care physicians. To expand the
delivery of quality medical care, Dr. Eugene Stead of the Duke
University Medical Center in North Carolina put together the first
class of PAs in 1965. He selected Navy corpsmen who received
considerable medical training during their military service and
during the war in Vietnam but who had no comparable civilian
employment. He based the curriculum of the PA program in part on his
knowledge of the fast-track training of doctors during World War II.
Q. What areas
of medicine can Physician Assistants work in?
A. Physician
assistants (PAs) are found in all areas of medicine. Today, over 50
percent of all physician assistants practice what is known as
"primary care medicine" - that is family medicine, internal
medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. About 19
percent are in surgery or the surgical subspecialties.
Physician
assistants receive a broad
education
in medicine. Their education is ongoing after graduation through
continuing medical education requirements and continual interaction
with physicians and other health care providers.
Q. Where do
PAs "draw the line" as far as what they can treat and what a
physician can treat?
A. What a
physician assistant does varies with training, experience, and state
law. In addition, the scope of the PA's practice corresponds to the
supervising physician's practice. In general, a physician assistant
will see many of the same types of patients as the physician. The
cases handled by physicians are generally the more complicated
medical cases or those cases which require care that is not a
routine part of the PA's scope of work. Referral to the physician,
or close consultation between the patient-PA-physician, is done for
unusual or hard to manage cases. Physician assistants are taught to
"know our limits" and refer to physicians appropriately. It is an
important part of PA training.
Q. How is a
Physician Assistant educated?
A. Physician
assistants are educated in intensive medical programs accredited by
the
Accreditation
Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA)
. The average PA program curriculum is 111 weeks, compared with 155
weeks for medical school.
Because of the
close working relationship PAs have with
physicians,
PAs are educated in a medical model designed to complement physician
training. PA students are taught, as are medical students, to
diagnose and treat medical problems.
Education
consists of classroom and laboratory instruction in the basic
medical and behavioral sciences (such as anatomy, pharmacology,
pathophysiology, clinical medicine, and physical diagnosis),
followed by clinical rotations in internal medicine, family
medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency
medicine, and geriatric medicine.
There are
currently more than 120 accredited
programs,
but an explosion of interest in the PA profession is resulting in
the establishment of many new educational programs. All PA programs
must meet the same curriculum
standards.
A PA's
education doesn't stop after graduation, though. PAs are required
to take ongoing continuing medical education classes and be retested
on their clinical skills on a regular basis. A number of
postgraduate
PA programs have also been established to provide
practicing PAs with advanced education in medical specialties.
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