Not being an American, I wonder if someone can enlighten me.
What is a “Physician Assistant” link
Sounds a lot like a nurse.
Physician’s assistants are people with at least a bachelor’s degree (although some programs involve a master’s) who are specifically trained in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. They can see patients, and in some states prescribe medications, but they must do so under the license and supervision of a medical doctor. The majority of the problems they treat are routine, and they will often be the ones to perform routine physical exams. (e.g. routine checkups for diabetes management and well-baby checkups)
They originated as a means of getting health care to underserved populations such as rural and inner-city. Often, a practice will hire at least one PA to handle routine cases and physicals to free the MD up for the more complex cases.
Robin
Our family practice has 2 or 3 PAs - in fact, there’s one in particular who we prefer to see. She has handled the routine stuff for us (daughter’s allergies, my sore foot, husband’s cholesterol) but the MDs are there to take over in case something is beyond her scope. We’ve found she’s more inclined to take time to talk and listen whereas the doctor always seems rushed. I wouldn’t want her doing a hip replacement on me, but for the more mundane medical issues, she’s wonderful.
Thanks everyone. This is different to Australia, your PA sounds like our general practioner, but here a GP is a fully trained medical doctor who deals with the mundane and the more complex, anything they can’t deal with is referred to a relevant specialist.
We do have people called Nurse Practioners who appear to be similar, but seem to work in remote areas where access to a GP is restricted.
NP’s also exist in this country, for similar purposes. In fact NP’s and PA’s have very similar roles in the health care system. The differences in scope vary from state to state, and mostly involve things like level of physician supervision, extent of prescription authority, frequency of chart review, etc. There are also surgical PA’s in hospitals without residency programs, who function much like surgical residents would in a teaching hospital.
In the U.S. a General Practitioner is also a fully trained and licensed physician. Most of the physicians who would have gone into general practice in previous times now go into family practice or internal medicine.
We also have nurse practitioners who are fully trained nurses, and then undergo additional training to become physician assistants.
PA’s and nurses have different duties and receive different training.