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What is a Physician Assistant? | ||||
| Physician assistants (PAs) are health care professionals licensed to practice medicine with physician supervision. PAs may provide care in rural or inner city clinics where a physician is present for only 1 or 2 days each week, conferring with the supervising physician and other medical professionals as needed or required by law. PAs may also make house calls or go to hospitals and nursing homes to check on patients and report back to the physician. They should not be confused with medical assistants, who perform routine clinical and clerical tasks. PAs are trained to conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, counsel on preventive health care, assist in surgery, and in virtually all states can write prescriptions. Within the physician-PA relationship, physician assistants exercise autonomy in medical decision making and provide a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic services. A PA's practice may also include education, research, and administrative services. Many PAs work in primary care areas such as general internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology. 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. 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 post-graduate PA programs have also been established to provide practicing PAs with advanced education in medical specialties, 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. When a physician assistant has a "C" after their name (ex. PA-C), this means they are certified and have met the defined course of study and has undergone testing by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). |
The relationship between a PA and the supervising physician is one of mutual trust and respect. The physician assistant is a representative of the physician, treating the patient in the style and manner developed and directed by the supervising physician. 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 the limits" and refer to physicians appropriately. It is an important part of PA training.
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Copyright 2006, Mecosta County Medical Center