Physician Assistant Research Paper

Ranked third by U.S. News and World Report on the list of “Best Health Care Jobs of 2017”, the Physician Assistant career has a 96 percent job-satisfaction rate, and represents one of the fastest growing jobs in the nation. Created as a position to relieve the job shortage of primary care physicians, Physician Assistants first came to be in the mid-1960s. Since then, the number of PAs in practice has just about doubled with every decade helping to improve health care not just nationally, but on a global level as well. Physician Assistants are licensed to practice medicine, prescribe medication, treat chronic illnesses, and assist in surgery in all 50 states under supervision of a physician. Although some medical practitioners perceive the role
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The physician assistant is a team player in the medical world, working daily with surgeons, physicians, therapists, and many other health care professionals. Similar to the job description of physicians, PAs see patients, take medical histories, preform physical exams, make diagnoses, order and interpret tests, and develop treatment plans (Ludwig). A physician assistant, nowadays, may even perform procedures that were once performed exclusively by physicians. Because every PA must have a supervising physician who oversees their work, it is assumed by many that PAs are “assistants to doctors”, however, that is not the case because a vast majority of PAs work independently. The extent of supervision by a physician varies depending on location and branch of medicine. Although, a physician assistant may carry out much of the same roles as a physician would, the amount of schooling required to become a PA is nearly half as many as that of a physician. Physician assistant programs nationwide require an undergraduate degree in one of many sciences, such as biology, and certain
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The road to gaining admission to medical school and becoming a physician is long, difficult, and intensely competitive. Once admitted, however, medical students spend the first two years primarily in laboratories and classrooms learning basic medical sciences. They also learn how to take medical histories, perform complete physical examinations, and recognize symptoms of diseases. During their third and fourth years, the medical students work under supervision at teaching hospitals and clinics. Following medical school, new physicians must complete a year of internship that emphasizes either general medical practice or one specific specialty and provides clinical experience in various hospital services. Physicians then continue in residency training, which lasts an additional three to six years, depending on the specialty. Immediately after residency, they are eligible to take an examination to earn board certification in their chosen specialty. Most traditional specialties include the following: anesthesiologist, cardiologist, dermatologist, family practitioner, gastroenterologist, internist, neurologist, oncologist, pathologist, psychiatrist, pulmonologist, and urologist