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ADVANCE Blog for PAs

Columnist Gets the PA Role Right

Published July 14, 2009 1:13 PM by Terri Schaefer
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Deseret News columnist Marjorie Cortez was spot-on in describing the role of PAs in health care in her article published this morning:

I'm continually fascinated by people I encounter in medical-clinic waiting rooms who absolutely refuse to see health-care providers other than doctors. My experiences with physician assistants and nurse practitioners have been stellar. They tend to spend more time with my child or me than doctors can. If an issue is beyond their scope of practice, they bring in a physician. It's the best of both worlds, I think.

But some people will insist on seeing "the doctor," even if it means they will wait two hours in the office for the 10-minute visit a receptionist has been able to shoe-horn into the schedule.

What's worse, seeing a physician assistant who has much of the same training as a physician, or seeing a physician who has seen a patient every 10 to 15 minutes that day, with the exception of the lunch break, if he or she takes it?

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posted by Terri Schaefer
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2 comments
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During the past several months and after President Barrack Obama  began speaking out in support of Health Care Reforms, several of my colleagues and I have noted that he  has omitted in his conversations or at least has not mentioned us by name.  I do not know if he is grouping us along or under the physician umbrella, but it seems to me that whoever is providing him with professional advice needs to make an effort to single us out as a group. I believe the same applies to Nurse Practitioners.  The world needs to know that when they come to a health care facility, at least 80% of these visits are completely handled by a non-physician health care worker.

I am not raising this issue as being a serious one. But I do believe that as we continue to work through our current healthcare reforms, the role of both PA’s and NP’s will continue to increase and as such, it is critical that we become publicly recognized with the sole intention of educating the community and to continue to earn a place in the health care field.
Ivan, OC Medicine - PA July 17, 2009 1:05 PM

During the past several months and after President Barrack Obama  began speaking out in support of Health Care Reforms, several of my colleagues and I have noted that he  has omitted in his conversations or at least has not mentioned us by name.  I do not know if he is grouping us along or under the physician umbrella, but it seems to me that whoever is providing him with professional advice needs to make an effort to single us out as a group. I believe the same applies to Nurse Practitioners.  The world needs to know that when they come to a health care facility, at least 80% of these visits are completely handled by a non-physician health care worker.

I am not raising this issue as being a serious one. But I do believe that as we continue to work through our current healthcare reforms, the role of both PA’s and NP’s will continue to increase and as such, it is critical that we become publicly recognized with the sole intention of educating the community and to continue to earn a place in the health care field.
Ivan, OC Medicine - PA July 17, 2009 1:05 PM

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