PAs and the Entry-Level Doctorate
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.
Tag: your pa can
The ROAD to Happiness
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 …
Are Physicians Overtrained? Is Physician Assistant Education Enough?
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 …
According to Science, Physician Assistants Provide Quality Care with Excellent Outcomes
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 …
PA vs MD: Why Comparing Years of Training is Misleading
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 …
Physician Assistant vs Physician Associate and Other Name Change Options
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 …
Pros and Cons of Optimal Team Practice
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.
Why Med School Wasn’t Even Plan B
I never even considered going to medical school until I was a senior in college, already interviewing for PA school. The idea occurred to me as I was walking across campus one day and thought, “Why not? Why not go to medical school instead of PA school?” By that time, …