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Will the name PA be changed to something else in the near future?


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I think medical practitioner is the perfect name because what we are today, we are proficient competent medical providers who have a vast knowledge in medicine and can treat majority of medical illnesses. We need a title that reflects what we do. The title "Physician Assistant" allows patients and colleagues to disrespect us. Medical doctors think we are their assistants and that we will never know what they know because we are an assistant. Patients always complain why should I see an assistant instead of the doctor implying that the assistant is somewhat incompetent. Even if we switch it to Physician Associate (certainly its better than physician assistant) but it still implies we are someone's associate and that we are not competent medical provider. But enough with fantasies, we as pas should all get involved at a legislative level to get these things rolling especially when we don't have the numbers that nurses have or the money that doctors have.

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^ I disagree, I think physician associate describes a PA's competency more fittingly, as a partner and not someone's "assistant". Physician "assistant" has a negative connotation to it, that more often than not gets patients confused with a "medical assistant".

 

What I find strange is that England's PAs are called physician associates, but they have far more clinical restrictions (ie prescription rights, autonomy) than what PAs here in the US have.

 

Also it's interesting that Yale has explicitly put on their website the name "physician associate" instead of "physician assistant" lol. https://medicine.yale.edu/pa/. Kudos to them!

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...Even if we switch it to Physician Associate (certainly its better than physician assistant) but it still implies we are someone's associate and that we are not competent medical provider...

 

This is false.

 

Associate

noun

 

      1. a partner or colleague in business or at work

 

Physicians are associates of one another, and I think that one would be hard pressed to make a valid case that PAs are not colleagues of physicians, working in tandem, in modern medicine. Especially in primary care, which is still the single largest subset of PAs.

 

Physician Associate preserves the initials "PA", which at this stage is important. Slowly PA has made it into the lexicon, internet search results, etc. More people than ever before understand its association with providers in the medical field. Changing that to MP or something else would be too jarring and undermine the small victories already achieved with recognition. We can keep using the "just say PA" mantra, but having it backed up on official documents and the like with Physician Associate sounds much better and is much more accurate. Better to change it sooner rather than later.

 
 
 
 
 
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I always thought the "just say PA" doesn't solve the problem because the very next question is "What does that stand for"? or "What does that mean"?

Also, this is exactly the same strategy used by the parent company for Pizza Hut/ Taco Bell/ KFC used when they decided to distance themselves from the word "fried" and just use "KFC." I love/ hate pointing that out.

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I always thought the "just say PA" doesn't solve the problem because the very next question is "What does that stand for"? or "What does that mean"?

 

At least then, following up with "It stands for Physician Associate" sounds much better. Maybe then people won't jump straight to the ol' "oh, you help/assist the doctor" bit.

 

Maybe it will get some cylinders firing and they'll be more apt to think "huh, he must work LIKE a doc".

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In English, the adjective comes before the noun. Apparently our founding Physician Assistants didn't speak English very well. I sure wish they'd have picked a name that made sense to the typical English speaker (in a predominantly English speakng country). Even if we go "associate," it remains asinine to keep it behind he word "physician." Makes about as much sense as "Doctor Medical" and "Coat White."

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I've been coming to these boards for almost 6 years now and basically nothing has changed about the whole name farce...oh I mean debate.

 

We all know physician assistant is outdated and just saying "PA" doesn't solve anything. But to use that annoying truism...it is what it is. I don't see it changing anytime soon and I pretty much stopped caring. I still get paid the same.

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No I don't think the AAPA has the the power to do anything over night. I do think that if they had the desire to they could chip away at each state until it was changed on a national level. Much in the same way that nurses are chipping away at independent practice state by state and eventually it will probably be national independent practice. I am just starting my PA journey though so maybe you can explain to me why the AAPA is dependent on the AMA to make this decision? Aside from the history of being supervised by physicians why does it have to continue that way?

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I'm definitely not suggesting it can't happen in the future.  I guess I'm just skeptical that a sweeping name change will be possible without first making headway on the legislative front.  Currently, the nursing lobby is far more influential than ours; despite that power, their change is slow (although steady).  It seems to me, as long as PAs are MD/DO-dependent (i.e., we can't practice without SOME degree of MD/DO oversight), then we are in a direct legilative tug-of-war with physicians (aka most powerful provider lobby in America).  Anything is possible, but I was just noticing that it will take more than the AAPA "getting on board" to make a sweeping national change.  I do like the suggestion that "chipping" away can eventually lead to substantial change, though, and, as a new PA, I look forward to contributing in any way I can.  

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I'm definitely not suggesting it can't happen in the future.  I guess I'm just skeptical that a sweeping name change will be possible without first making headway on the legislative front.  Currently, the nursing lobby is far more influential than ours; despite that power, their change is slow (although steady).  It seems to me, as long as PAs are MD/DO-dependent (i.e., we can't practice without SOME degree of MD/DO oversight), then we are in a direct legilative tug-of-war with physicians (aka most powerful provider lobby in America).  Anything is possible, but I was just noticing that it will take more than the AAPA "getting on board" to make a sweeping national change.  I do like the suggestion that "chipping" away can eventually lead to substantial change, though, and, as a new PA, I look forward to contributing in any way I can.  

I think the nursing lobby is probably stronger. physicians as a rule are not involved in their natl organizations.

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Do you really think the aapa has the power to change the name, nationally, just like that? Seems like this here is an AMA-dependent situation...

The AMA is not involved unless they try to use political lobbying as obstructionists.

 

This will require a bellwether state to write legislation allowing the use of the Physician Associate (or other) title change.

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I'm definitely not suggesting it can't happen in the future.  I guess I'm just skeptical that a sweeping name change will be possible without first making headway on the legislative front.  Currently, the nursing lobby is far more influential than ours; despite that power, their change is slow (although steady).  It seems to me, as long as PAs are MD/DO-dependent (i.e., we can't practice without SOME degree of MD/DO oversight), then we are in a direct legilative tug-of-war with physicians (aka most powerful provider lobby in America).  Anything is possible, but I was just noticing that it will take more than the AAPA "getting on board" to make a sweeping national change.  I do like the suggestion that "chipping" away can eventually lead to substantial change, though, and, as a new PA, I look forward to contributing in any way I can.  

The AAPA will need to endorse it, only b/c it would be odd that a state would write the law without their state academy (a chapter of the AAPA) supporting it. And the people in state legislative PA affairs are usually have direct or indirect state academy ties.

 

The AAPA has historically been pretty bad at endorsing this. They have been VERY good at advancing prescriptive authority, and wrote the 6 Key Elements which support us practicing with broad/appropriate scope.

Their workaround has been to latch onto collaboration over supervision, which is easy b/c of the precedent set by NPs with this language. They haven't yet taken the bull by the horns on Assistant, and I'm afraid it's because unfortunately it's easier for them to have us wear that title. Not great representation, even in the face of compelling survey results we got 3-4 yrs ago (was it that long now, EMEDPA?????)

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I've been a PA for a long time and the name issue has been around longer than I have.i completely agree that Physician Associate is the most appropriate name. Seems like a simple enough thing to change. Having said that I think the whole name change issue is tantamount to the name change issue with the Washington Redskins football organization. The name should be changed but honestly there are much bigger issue that trump the name change issue.

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I've been a PA for a long time and the name issue has been around longer than I have.i completely agree that Physician Associate is the most appropriate name. 

 

 

"Physician Associate" is hardly better than Physician Assistant.  English language: adjective "assistant/associate" ALWAYS goes before the noun "physician".  (Imagine if all professions skewed their word order the way we do: Doctor Medical, Accountant Certified, Worker Social, Therapist Licensed...)  First we need to correct the ludicrous grammar of the name by either arranging PA to AP or by adding an apostrophe-s to become Physician's Assistant.  Assistant or Associate--as long as the word order remains unintelligible (and therefore, vague and perpetually misunderstood), patients and colleagues are going to continue wondering "By 'PA', do they mean AP or P'sA?"  And if we rule out Assistant Physician, Associate Physician, and Physician's Assistant as names, then we need a new name entirely.  But don't think keeping the acronym "PA" is reasonable just because it's convenient.  

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