JAAPA opinion piece on online PA programs

[Acebecker]

I've got a better movie plot line:

PAs keep worrying about doing things in a way that will please docs or remain congruent enough with physician medical training that they never really break the shackles of their assistant status prescribed 50 years ago.

Meanwhile, NPs continue to push their educational and legislative model forward in order to consume primary care and grow their claim on the primary care marketplace.

 

Oh wait.

 

That's already happening in real life.

 

So doing something that has negative connotations for the entire profession because we need to get away from our roots is the way to go?  I'm not following that train of thought. 

[BruceBanner]

@PACdan, "Someone give us the overwhelming benefits of online PA programs"... Well.... here's your answer. An earlier poster stated Yale's tuition for its program(s) at 83K, (if memory serves). I'm not a math guy so I'm going to use round numbers. for the sake of example lets decrease the tuition to 80K. then add 40 students per class. that's 3,200,000.00 ish.... Now add another  40....50....60....etc. online students and I think everyone every PA school administrator can see the "benefit" of online PA programs.

 

IMHO, I don't think any school really cares about the students.... its all about how to increase the money and prestige, students are a foregone conclusion. If the program can squeeze more money into it, they will, no matter the cost, or means. just sayin'       

 

100% correct.

 

Online education is about one thing: MONEY. They can garner more tuition without the cost of more infrastructure and hard resources. 

 

I think it's a bad move for the profession as it decreases our perceived legitimacy and opens the door to graduating poor clinicians. Various personality and professionalism issues are caught in the didactic environment.

 

Also, this opens the door to having students scramble or be responsible for their own clinical rotation sites. There is always a shortage of those. 

 

And, of course, it will further saturate the job market, eventually driving down salaries and forcing new grads into dubious positions.

[andersenpa]

So doing something that has negative connotations for the entire profession because we need to get away from our roots is the way to go?  I'm not following that train of thought. 

I don't buy that it has negative connotations.

The reason I use NPs as a point of comparison is that they have been patient centered, whether or not you agree with their training model. They have produced clinicians and gotten them out into the workforce, and met a demand. They have the obvious advantage of 1) a strong lobby and 2) no medical societies to restrain them. 

Arguing about the way you think it "should be" doesn't change the way it can be done, to good effect.

 

Also don't adhere too closely to your roots. 

If you did, you'd still be a Physician's Assistant, unable to prescribe controlled substances, only allowed to practice with your supervising physician on premises, no allowance anywhere in the country for practice ownership, etc, etc....

 

The profession matures, and the healthcare landscape changes (like it nor not). 

 

PAs will need to bend like a river, or they will break like a tree.

[andersenpa]

 

 

And, of course, it will further saturate the job market, eventually driving down salaries and forcing new grads into dubious positions.

Not so sure about this as all workforce projections show strong future job viability for PAs, taking into consideration the growth in programs. 

I've been hearing this line about salary depression due to saturation the entire 15 yrs I've been a PA and haven't seen it. Markets that are in demand (perfect example metro NY) will remain lower than less desirable areas, but there has not been a decline; salaries have steadily risen. With an already tremendous growth in programs and graduates. 

[SocialMedicine]

Disagree andersen PA. I reviewed well over 15-20 workforce predictions research including some predictions on federal web sites for a recent event. Many of these papers are considered leading visions in the arena. They do not take into account the acceleration of training of NP/PA, and MD. This increase in NP/PA is NOT insignificant as both professions will have come close to doubling the number of new graduates in a decade. I suppose the ARC PA/PAEA have this data but I have not seen anactual report of how many PA's we could be producing in 5 or 10 years. I am not saying we are producing too many clinicians necessarily ... its just a lot of the data people cite is clearly misguided AND these shortages are in specific areas of medicine. Community/underserved primary care is a different job and lifestyle than surgery in a hospital or a private dermatology office. And many happy/well paid PAs would find a change in satisfaction/careers if they were directed into those fields because specialties and private offices were saturated. You could find an interesting change in who stays in the profession etc. More discussion of this is needed at the AAPA / PAEA level. Leaders in these groups should partner with individuals doing workforce predictions and get some projections with higher validity. 

[andersenpa]

Where is the data

[SocialMedicine]

The data is on pub med/med line everywhere .... select a piece of research ... post the paper title and I will post a public response how it is flawed in the context I outlined above. I do not have any research expressing my concern which is why it is a concern of mine. If it was already described in the medical workforce literature I would not bother. And we should not be so foolish to assume the researchers know best here .... many people researching these issues are unaware of the insider knowledge of NP and PA school booms. Its not really much discussed unless you are part of ARC PA/PAEA.

[andersenpa]

The data is on pub med/med line everywhere .... select a piece of research ... post the paper title and I will post a public response how it is flawed in the context I outlined above. I do not have any research expressing my concern which is why it is a concern of mine. If it was already described in the medical workforce literature I would not bother. And we should not be so foolish to assume the researchers know best here .... many people researching these issues are unaware of the insider knowledge of NP and PA school booms. Its not really much discussed unless you are part of ARC PA/PAEA.

Then your argument is with the overall growth of PA programs, not the online variety

You reviewed the data and cannot say that we are producing too many providers

And the problem is clearly not raw numbers of providers but allocation (be specialty and geography)

So.....I'm not sure what the opposition is other than methodology, which is a separate topic

[BruceBanner]

It could be that the perceived over-saturation problem is an allocation issue like Anderson said rather than gross volume. This would be difficult to quantify, and even if we did it would be invalid data by the time it was published.

 

But regardless, increasing the annual volume of new grads---whether by traditional programs or online programs--- will only exacerbate the allocation problem; either forcing new grads into undesirable areas/specialties or driving down compensation on a regional scale.

 

And in regards to online programs in particular, I still hold those qualitative concerns I mentioned earlier in this thread about "de-legitimizing" the profession to some degree. I think it's a slippery slope.