I have a Physician Assistant friend who goes into a funk when her paycheck gets deposited each month. It’s not the amount getting her down—She makes a lot of money. She’s been with a great medical university for 15 years and receives an annual 3% raise. She doesn’t hate her …
When students are deciding on specialties they’d like to pursue, they often talk about “The ROAD” or “The ROAD to Happiness” also known as the fields of Radiology, Opthalmology, Anesthesia, or Dermatology. Medical and PA students are not known for being stupid. They’re well aware of the mountainous debt and …
In last month’s issue of JAAPA (Journal of the American Academy of PAs), PAs James Cawley, Richard Dehn, and Dr. Christine Everett discussed whether or not the educational paradigm for primary care providers is changing, an issue already addressed by physician assistant education. The authors raise the question: Are physicians …
Once upon a time, LECOM’s PA to DO bridge was novel and exciting. I’ve considered it many times. Their Accelerated Physician Assistant Pathway (APAP) is designed to bridge the gap between PA and physician. But it’s far from the perfect PA bridge program and doesn’t do much to incentive experienced PAs to matriculate.
What happens when you analyze 30 million patient visits by Advanced Practice Providers (PAs and NPs)? You discover that they care for the same types of patients as physicians and achieve equivalent or better results. In 2019, two MDs teamed up for a critical review of 30 research papers on …
I remember sitting in an undergraduate health policy class when the instructor resolutely declared that “healthcare is a basic human right.” I was preparing to apply to PA school at the time and was already bothered by the idea that someone might feel that they had a right to my …
Mark Twain supposedly said that there are three types of lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” One statistic I hear often is how many years it takes to be an MD vs a PA. It seems pretty straightforward, right? “7+ years to be a medical doctor vs 2 years to …
Optimal Team Practice (OTP) is the current battle cry for PAs focused on the future of the profession. But before OTP, there was FPAR or Full Practice Authority and Responsibility. Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. At other times, they seem to be in opposition. What is full practice authority, …
One of the greatest issues facing physician assistants (PAs) is that of a name change. But this isn’t a new dilemma. A vigorous debate has taken place for at least the last 10 years, but in reality, it has been a constant in the profession since PAs really started to …
The first Doctor of Medical Science program for PAs was created at Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) in Harrogate, Tennesee. It was developed in conjunction with LMU’s DeBusk School of Osteopathic Medicine in 2016 to give PAs additional didactic and practical training to better care for the underserved. In 2017, Doctor of …
