burnpac Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 California Colleagues, those of us in surgery have been waiting for this change in regulation for a long time. on 12/19/2014, the Medical Board of California adopted the following in Section 1399.541 of Article 4 of Division 13.8 to read as follows: (i)(1) Perform surgical procedures without the personal presence of the supervising physician which are customarily performed under local anesthesia. Prior to delegating any such surgical procedures, the supervising physician shall review documentation which indicates that the physician assistant is trained to perform the surgical procedures. All other surgical procedures requiring other forms of anesthesia may be performed by a physician assistant only in the personal presence of a supervising physician. (2) A physician assistant may also act as first or second assistant in surgery under the supervision of a supervising physician. The physician assistant may so act without the personal presence of the supervising physician if the supervising physician is immediately available to the physician assistant. “Immediately available” means able to return to the patient, without delay, upon the request of the physician assistant or to address any situation requiring the supervising physician’s services. This may not seem like much, but is a big deal to us surgical PAs, and will allows PAs to continue the procedure in the temporary absence of the surgeon, or to close the case without the physical presence of the surgeon in the operative suite. I suspect that this legitimizes what is already standard practice in a lot of surgical teams. Thank you CAPA for getting this pushed through! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delco714 Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Is this unique to cali? Here in Maine I close all the time when the surgeon leaves. NY too.. but I'm happy for you guys in cali, that's a big big deal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpac Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 Is this unique to cali? Here in Maine I close all the time when the surgeon leaves. NY too.. but I'm happy for you guys in cali, that's a big big deal! The regulations in every state are unique to that state. That is why it behooves a PA to know their local regulations. Like I said, this validates SOP in California; and it gives us a regulatory leg to stand on when the surgeon must leave the room at an intraoperative point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andersenpa Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Good info Steve I know the APACVS has been working on the language in Title 22 re: PAs as first assistants in cases involving cardiopulmonary bypass Does this legislation impact that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpac Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 Good info Steve I know the APACVS has been working on the language in Title 22 re: PAs as first assistants in cases involving cardiopulmonary bypass Does this legislation impact that? Unfortunately, no. the issue you are bringing up is in Section 70435 (b)(2) of Title 22 pertains to the makeup of the surgical team during cardiac surgery. The new regs only affect Section 1399.541 of Article 4 of Division 13.8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randito Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Do you have a link to the newly adopted regulation? On the Medical Board of California's website, I'm only finding the proposed change. The timing of this couldn't be better for me as I have been asked update my DSA with some additional job duties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burnpac Posted January 9, 2015 Author Share Posted January 9, 2015 It was passed on december 19th but the actual regulation has not been updated yet on the leg info Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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