What is Primary Care?

[Elmers]

Many of the programs are primary care focused, but I noticed that the rotations consist of OB/GYN, general surgery, and emergency medicine. I always thought of primary care as general practice--such as family practice. Why do programs include these rotations if they are primary care focused? Why not just have more rotations in family medicine?

[UGoLong]

The advantage of the PA route to me is that we are trained as generalists. I also went to a school that emphasized primary care and we had lots of required rotations in a variety of medical specialties. Because of the program's focus, we started and ended with a primary care rotation with the same preceptor.

 

I think that the goal here is to give you some perspective on medicine and on what happens to your patients when they get referred to specialists. For example, you can talk about gallbladder surgery because you've been there and helped out. You have spent time dealing with patients of all ages and in a wide variety of disease states. This is a tremendous advantage in working with your patients, whether you go ultimately decide to go into primary care or not.

 

I think that another advantage of a variety of rotations is that it is not unusual for a PA student's career goals to change while in their rotations. I was going to do family med or emergency med when I started school. My optional cardiology rotation convinced me otherwise.

 

I hope this helps. Good luck on your career choice.

[primadonna22274]

A great primary care provider is capable of handling most anything that walks in her/his door--so you must be comfortable with emergencies and even (ugh, the bane of my existence) OB. It's fine to stabilize and transfer, but if you can't recognize the problem in the first place you and the patient are in a very bad place.

It's critical that you understand what goes on in the hospital, in the OR, in the ICU etc regardless of whether you ever want to work there.

[Elmers]

i see. Thanks for replying!