Physician Assistant

The Physician Assistant has wide variety of roles within the healthcare community. Some people may not be familiar with them, while others assume that they are physicians, while some yet think that the care they provide isn’t as good as a physician’s. While there are good and bad people in every profession, generally Physician Assistants have been trained to take very good care of their patients. I have even had some physicians tell me that the Physician Assistant that works with them is better than some physicians they have encountered.

Physician assistants can work in internal medicine, in the ER, in the surgery room, and even in the ICU. Generally a PA will decide which field they go into during their clinical rotations while in PA school. They have many of the same responsibilities as the physicians around them, like stitching wounds and prescribing medicine. PA’s can also function as the physician’s first assist during surgeries, and will often be the provider that the patient sees during any follow up visits. A great physician assistant can be a very valuable asset to a physician, often seeing the less acute patients so that the physician can focus on the more highly acute ones.

With the looming healthcare shortage, physician assistants are quickly becoming the answer to the problem. Since it takes much less time to become a PA, schools are able to increase their supply much more quickly than it takes to train a physician. If you have never seen a physician assistant at your doctor’s office the odds of that happening in the future are quickly increasing. You can rest assured that your health is in very good hands, and that you are being seen by a very competent medical professional.