United Surgical Assistants is leaving the state of Alabama because of problems receiving reimbursement for PA services from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, according to an article in today's Birmingham News. Tampa-based United Surgical Assistants has operated in Alabama for three years and employs eight physician assistants in ...

In the AAPA's 2007 New PA Student Census Survey, 2,272 of 5,165 respondents (44%) stated that they intended to practice in family/general medicine after graduation (respondents are permitted to mark more than one potential specialty). At least at the beginning of PA training, students are still considering primary care. By the end, probably ...

Just spotted a post about this at the PA Forum. Johns Hopkins has created a postgraduate residency in critical care for PAs. The Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine Postgraduate Critical Care Residency is a 12-month program involving all aspects of managing the care of acute and critically ill patients. ...

Wall Street Journal physician columnist Benjamin Brewer bemoans the ''impending collapse of primary care.'' We've now trained a complete generation of doctors that cares more about lifestyle than anything else. Medical students are choosing the ROAD to success, meaning Radiology, Ophthalmology, Anesthesiology and Dermatology. By first year, ...

ARC-PA has created a page to list accredited clinical postgraduate PA programs. There are currently two. The surgery residency at Johns Hopkins and the oncology residency at MD Anderson Cancer Center received ARC-PA accreditation in March. Link

The Society of Emergency Physician Assistants will hold its 2009 conference at the Marco Island Resort and Spa in Marco Island, Fla., from April 5-9. Four hundred emergency medicine PAs attended SEMPA's recent 2008 conference in Tucson. Link

The AAPA recently added a new PA compensation report to its Web site. This report breaks down by specialty the types of compensation received by PAs from their primary employers. As part of the 2007 AAPA Physician Assistant Census, respondents were asked to report the total income they expected to receive in 2007. Respondents were also ...

The April 15 issue of AAPA News includes a report on three new PA special interest groups: The Association of Physician Assistants in Hospital Medicine Physician Assistants for Health Freedom Physician Assistants in Infectious Diseases On the surface, the new PA special interest groups recently approved by the AAPA Constituent Relations ...

The AAPA announced that beginning on 2008 PAs will receive cards for completing the American College of Surgeons' ATLS course. Between now and this fall, ACS will work to restructure the rules, design the cards, and inform ATLS course managers of the new policy. Until then, PAs will continue to receive letters indicating that they have ...

ADVANCE will be at the Society of Emergency Medicine Physician Assistants conference in Tucson from March 30 to April 3. The academic program, which offers something for everyone, will be presented by a distinguished faculty from throughout the country. After each Conference, we carefully evaluate the input from our attendees, both in terms of ...