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The PA Profession's Responsibility - LANGUAGE


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As I peruse the PA profession's furor about the Women's Health article on PAForum as well as on Facebook - and perhaps other blogs that I don't frequent, I'm struck by a few key things.  It is important to hold publications and entities responsible when they misrepresent the PA profession - like the plethora of letters to the editor flying into the Inbox of tellus@womenshealthmag.com by those of use that are inclined.  I'm glad about that and I encourage every colleague who has taken the time to respond on this forum expressing dismay about the article to take the time - 5 minutes tops - to write a letter to Women's Health magazine.  It matters when the collective large voice speaks, so my fellow PAs, keep writing those letters!!!

 

I'd also like to reflect on the collective PA Profession's responsibility to what leads to inaccuracies like the article in Women's Health magazine.  I personally believe the primary source of such inaccuracies largely stem from the language that OUR OWN profession uses to describe what we do.  If you haven't ever taken the time to peruse your own state's PA website, do so now.  Look with a discerning eye for the language used to describe PAs. I found all of these on the AAPA and various state PA organization sites TODAY.

 

ASSISTANT  - We hand other people stuff all day

SUPERVISED - someone looks over our shoulder all day

DEPENDENT - we don't do anything without someone helping us out

MD-LED - sounds like we're tagging along all day

MIDLEVEL - we must not be good enough to be top level

 

I did the same for a few NP Association websites.  NONE, ZERO, ZIPPO, NADA of those words exist anywhere in the NP lexicon.

 

As any journalist with lay medical knowledge will do, they head straight to a handful of websites to extrapolate basic information about a given topic.  They also read the "tone" with which the information is presented.  

 

So my question is....where is the responsibility of the collective PA profession in all this?  How can we expect journalists, lay people, patients and even other medical professionals to reinterpret language descriptors when these still inhabit how we decribe our own profession? 

 

Language matters!

 

 

 

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Guest Paula

I agree.  We are to take responsibility as to how we describe ourselves.  Ever since the AAPA communication guide came out  I have been using it as a template for discussing our profession with colleagues.  I sent it to our marketing department and have been watching how they describe  PAs.  They promote the new hires and I hope they are taking the guide to heart.  They have a copy. 

 

I have the privilege to make suggestions on changing our state PA academy's language.  Some of the language is starting to change.  All PAs on the forum can take a few minutes to email their state chapter and ask if they can proof read the site, make changes, and promote the PA profession as the highly educated and competent medical providers. 

 

It takes one to make a difference.  

 

Are you that one for your state? 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm so glad to see that I was not the only one left completely appalled by that article. I read it one day while trying to relax on the beach after recently graduating and passing my boards, except that it irritated me so badly I was anything but relaxed! I thought after a few days I would be over it. A month later, here I am doing a google search to see if anyone had written about this article and its inaccuracies. I found this!

 

I still feel like writing the editor of women's health magazine. 

 

What really unnerved me about that article isn't necessarily what they said about what a PA can/cannot do, but rather how they stated that an NP can do "what a PA can, PLUS treat chronic conditions" and interpret "complex" diagnostic tests (after suggesting that PAs can only interpret x-rays and blood tests). This is clearly a perfect example of how misunderstood our profession still is. 

 

I agree language is everything. The issue stems from the poor choice of names for the profession in the first place. Is there any indication it will be changing soon (if ever)? 

 

 

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I don't know if the title will ever be corrected.  I still have hope and challenge all new PAs and PA students to get intimately involved in advocacy as you will be the ones who make a difference in the future of the profession.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It still kinda urks me on this surgical rotation when I'm rounding with the NP and we're consenting patients and how he/she explains "this form is saying that you're okay with a mid-level performing the duties we've been trained to perform, such as myself - the Nurse Practitioner , or (insert PAs name), the Physician'ZZZZZ Assistant..." -- I can almost immediately see the pt's mind spinning "Oh boy well I really hope it's the Practitioner and not the Assistant wielding the sharp tools!" 

 

Also, to the experienced PAs on here: do you work "For your MD/DO" or do you work "With your MD/DO" ? 

 

It's a minor semantic, but it's something that means a lot to me as I begin to rotate and see the hierarchy from within. I hear a lot of attendings speak about their team members with a possessive ownership....I didn't go to PA school to be "owned" by a superior, but I'm still learning a lot (obviously). 

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I work WITH a physician.  I never work FOR  a physician.  I've never allowed myself to be "owned" by a physician.  I try to not say the physician I work with is "my physician" as I go to a PA for healthcare.  I do not own the physician I work with either. 

 

Now the other story is that I work for a medical group and they kinda "own" me.  Gotta march to the large administrative edicts that come down the pike now that our group got swallowed up by a larger group.  Boo bad.  It's tolerable so far................

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I work with physicians in the clinic, if you could say that. Not sure who my collaborating physician is nor do they know.

 

My head almost exploded the other day. I was talking with an MD about PA independence and said he was all for it. Said, and I quote "Outcomes are just as good for PAs and NPs who are perfectly capable of knowing anything I know. Anyone who says different is just worried about losing cash flow."

 

Coming from an MD

Mind = blown.

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My collaborating physician said basically the same thing. ......"All the PAs I've ever worked with could have been physicians and do the same thing I do".  "PAs could take over primary care."

 

My  mind wasn't blown though.  He is the best collaborating I've had.... no ego problems, tells me when he doesn't know something, often times says...gee I haven't thought about that in a long time, I will have to look it up".  

 

 

We work Family Practice. 

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As I peruse the PA profession's furor about the Women's Health article on PAForum as well as on Facebook - and perhaps other blogs that I don't frequent, I'm struck by a few key things.  It is important to hold publications and entities responsible when they misrepresent the PA profession - like the plethora of letters to the editor flying into the Inbox of tellus@womenshealthmag.com by those of use that are inclined.  I'm glad about that and I encourage every colleague who has taken the time to respond on this forum expressing dismay about the article to take the time - 5 minutes tops - to write a letter to Women's Health magazine.  It matters when the collective large voice speaks, so my fellow PAs, keep writing those letters!!!

 

I'd also like to reflect on the collective PA Profession's responsibility to what leads to inaccuracies like the article in Women's Health magazine.  I personally believe the primary source of such inaccuracies largely stem from the language that OUR OWN profession uses to describe what we do.  If you haven't ever taken the time to peruse your own state's PA website, do so now.  Look with a discerning eye for the language used to describe PAs. I found all of these on the AAPA and various state PA organization sites TODAY.

 

ASSISTANT  - We hand other people stuff all day

SUPERVISED - someone looks over our shoulder all day

DEPENDENT - we don't do anything without someone helping us out

MD-LED - sounds like we're tagging along all day

MIDLEVEL - we must not be good enough to be top level

 

I did the same for a few NP Association websites.  NONE, ZERO, ZIPPO, NADA of those words exist anywhere in the NP lexicon.

 

As any journalist with lay medical knowledge will do, they head straight to a handful of websites to extrapolate basic information about a given topic.  They also read the "tone" with which the information is presented.  

 

So my question is....where is the responsibility of the collective PA profession in all this?  How can we expect journalists, lay people, patients and even other medical professionals to reinterpret language descriptors when these still inhabit how we decribe our own profession? 

 

Language matters!

 

ahhhh...another word geek...love you, paula!

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  • 6 months later...

Revisiting an old thread, with a perennial issue that probably needs to be pushed harder to become a priority.

 

I was thinking the other day about how there's such standardization across PA programs in terms of subject matter and training, but so little in terms of what the academic degree is called. A Master's in "Physician Assistant Studies" strikes me as very weak; studying literature or chemistry or history means something, but studying "PA Studies" is vague as hell. It's also self-referencing, and kind of tautological.

 

Doesn't Yale still offer a "Master's in Medical Science"? That sounds great, plus it's clear, plus it's accurate. My program at least offered an MS in "Physician Assistant Practice," which is tons better than "PA Studies," but it still irks me 7 years later that the word "medicine" or "medical" is not in there somewhere. PA practice, in the real world, is one of the ways in which medicine is practiced, after all. It's not like medicine is one thing, and physician assistanting is something else.

 

So our problem of what we are and the role we play is undermined by the word "Assistant," which even the AAPA has admitted gets in the way, but I think the problem starts before that, with our academic programs.

 

How would PAFT feel about trying to open up a dialogue with ARC-PA about standardizing the name of the academic degree program that leads to qualification for the clinical role for PAs? No doubt there would be all sorts of push-back about printing new stationery and potentially confusing applicants and preceptors, but those obstacles are frankly pretty trivial.

 

I think this is going to be a grass-roots thing, so let's go as far upstream as we can, right?

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Guest Paula

I agree Febrifuge!  It has always bugged me that the MPAS means Master's in PA Studies.  Who really wants a Master's degree in studying PAs?  We would be a rather interesting group of people to study but it adds nothing to patient care....LOL!

 

I vote PAFT think about adding this to our agenda and approach ARC-PA and petition that all PA programs be called MMSc degrees. 

 

I imagine the red tape will be with the individual universities and colleges whose inner working and layers of bureaucracy will impeded the designation change for 100s of years. 

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I imagine the red tape will be with the individual universities and colleges whose inner working and layers of bureaucracy will impeded the designation change for 100s of years.

 

If a university administrator balks at adjusting the name of the degree program to reflect the nature of the actual career, then I have a few responses:

 

1) there are plenty of new PA programs popping up all over the place. There will very possibly be a preference among applicants, and then later among hiring administrators and practices, for applicants with an MMSc degree. Do you really want to stick with "PA Studies" in that environment? Why not get ahead of the change?

 

2) the University of Arkansas has undergrad and graduate degrees in both Computer Science and Computer Engineering. They also have both an MS and an MA in Physics. This stuff is not as confusing as people seem to want to believe it is. People in the field understand what's what.

 

(Source: http://www.uark.edu/academics/majors.php)

 

3) "PA Studies" is vague, and also kind of cheesy. Sounds like something from a community college. You're a solid, legitimate university, right? You don't award a degree in "legal studies," your students study law. You don't award a Master's in Business Administration Studies, your people get an MBA. PAs practice medicine. PA students study medicine. It's really simple. Get your act together.

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  • 2 months later...

Yeah one time someone asked me what i do for a living, I said Physician Assistant. He was like, " oh you hand doctors instruments and stuff?"

 

The Title "Assistant" is demeaning and obscure; it should have been changed to "Associate" years ago.

I hand my physician the pager when I'm done with it..

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

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Yeah one time someone asked me what i do for a living, I said Physician Assistant.  He was like, " oh you hand doctors instruments and stuff?"

 

The Title "Assistant" is demeaning and obscure; it should have been changed to "Associate" years ago.  

 

 

Would changing the title to "Associate" add to pt confusion and result in better patient outcomes? "I saw a physician assistant last year, now an associate? what's going on?" . The logistics as well should be considered; All the AAPA literature, every program's literature and all federal and state legislation would have to be edited and changed - what would that cost? Someone would have to sit down and get paid for that. I believe associate is more appropriate and assistant is antiquated, but there is a PR and logistical mountain to climb.  Forgive me, I am only a PA-s and I am very eager to be apart of the advocacy for the profession and furthering it. 

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Would changing the title to "Associate" add to pt confusion and result in better patient outcomes? "I saw a physician assistant last year, now an associate? what's going on?" . The logistics as well should be considered; All the AAPA literature, every program's literature and all federal and state legislation would have to be edited and changed - what would that cost? Someone would have to sit down and get paid for that. I believe associate is more appropriate and assistant is antiquated, but there is a PR and logistical mountain to climb. Forgive me, I am only a PA-s and I am very eager to be apart of the advocacy for the profession and furthering it.

With how often I explain what a PA is, it would take 5 more secs to explain "well the title had become obsolete and needed to be updated."

 

All it would take is just having future published literature have associate and not assistant. It wouldn't have to be an overnight change, just a phase out.

 

It takes nothing to change the state regulation. "Addendum: all forthwith mention of physician assistant shall be made to read as physician assistant or physician associate." It doesn't cost anything to change statutes or regulations. Our taxes already pay politician salaries. You just have to have someone sponsor it.

 

It's really a logistical mole hill.

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I don't think it would be that hard to change it as ONeal has pointed out.

 

I am tired of explaining that I don't "assist" anything and can work by myself in FP.

 

The change would also help with the hopeful progress that we could gain independence in FP and rural EM etc based on experience, testing and the current needs of the US health system. Being an ASSOCIATE certainly would look and sound better than some "assistant" planted out in the stix to take of people.

 

Semantics does do a lot in certain situations.

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You know what would be nice? A card the size of a postcard with a picture of a PA and a snippet of what we do, how we are trained, and what we bring to the table.

 

We could hand them out when we are asked that question.

 

A. Public is informed

B. Mitigates disinformation

C. Makes us look like we have our shit together

 

??

 

Lately I have found it much funnier to just reply:

 

"Im a physician assistant- you know, I bring the coffee and donuts, pickup dry cleaning..." As I am stitching up their face...

 

????????????

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