Is the term mid-level provider offensive? Yes, yes it is. And worse yet it’s not an accurate description of the care provided by PAs and NPs. So where did the term mid-level provider or mid-level practitioner come from and what should we be saying instead? Let’s start with the origin of the term itself.
Acne vulgaris and acne rosacea are two common skin conditions that affect adolescents and adults. They’re both inflammatory conditions that can be frustrating to treat for both patients and providers. At times, their presentations can be difficult to differentiate; however, teasing out the differences is important since treatments for acne …
Physician assistant residencies have been around for roughly five decades now and continue to be a hot topic. They average from one to two years in length and span from surgical to non-surgical specialties. Most studies have focused on similar parameters of these residency programs such as short and long-term …
PAs have been Masters of medicine since the 1990s–is it time they move on? Doctors are no longer exclusively MDs or DOs. PAs must ask themselves if it’s time to get on board with the entry-level doctorate.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Optimal Team Practice, or OTP, is the term given to a 2017 policy supported by the American Academy of PAs that calls for, among other things, the removal of the state-level requirement for a physician to go on record as the supervisor of a PA.
