PA Organization and Leadership Part I

[andersenpa]

I have two threads here. This is a general question and the other is a poll. Please take a minute to answer the poll as well.

 

If your institution, practice, town or region was to organize PAs in some way, what are the goals you would be looking to accomplish?

What are the traits that you would look for in the group?

 

In my thinking about this, I see the general themes as:

 

Leadership

Organization

Representation

Advocacy

 

there's probably some overlap there but that's the general idea.

What other broad categories of action would you include in your ideal PA Group?

 

As a subset of this there would be specific aspects of PA practice to address: definition of PA's role in practice, scope, compensation, legal support, educational support, etc.

 

Thoughts?

 

POLL THREAD:

http://www.physicianassistantforum.com/forums/showthread.php/32351-PA-Organization-and-Leadership-II-Poll-Lead-PAs

[jesscbv]

Involvement. We all got into the profession (or are trying to get into the profession) to help people. Of course, during regular working hours we all help people. I volunteer/shadow/work with with PAs who volunteer their time at free clinics, educational health fairs, and at high schools etc. It's a great way to introduce people to the profession and the work PAs do!

[andersenpa]

Involvement. We all got into the profession (or are trying to get into the profession) to help people. Of course, during regular working hours we all help people. I volunteer/shadow/work with with PAs who volunteer their time at free clinics, educational health fairs, and at high schools etc. It's a great way to introduce people to the profession and the work PAs do!

 

So...you mean involvement as in an outreach service to get pre-PAs involved? Or something more than that?

[physasst]

I think it really depends on what foundation the organization would have, and what, if any power it would have.

 

For example, our institution has an "NP/PA Steering Committee" which is supposed to be our representation on the institutional level. The problem is, they will even admit that they have no functional power to enact any changes. So essentially, it becomes a forum to air grievances, but as they can't be fixed, it becomes a de facto complaint session with the same recurrent complaints being seen and heard over and over.

 

Now, if you are talking about state, county, or national organizations..I would think that their primary goal would be one of advocacy and representation....a guild if you will.

 

Institutional organizations by contrast, should strive to provide leadership and direction as well as representation at the institutional level. One of the primary problems is, that fundamentally, what is really important to one PA, may not be to another.

[jesscbv]

Well, that too. It's helped a lot that PAs have taken time to mentor me. But what I meant was that PAs should do community outreach as a way to be visible. PAs in volunteer positions, organizing health fairs, going to local schools to develop plans for exercise and lifestyle improvement etc. This will show the community what PAs are doing to implement positive change, and this will also serve as a way for PAs to "be in the spotlight." The more visible PAs become within their community, the more people begin to understand how PAs' skills can be utilized...etc.

[EMEDPA]

I guess most of what I would like to see involves advocacy for the pa role. I would like pa's to be able to be credntialed for things they have training to perform and not impeded by rules that say no pa shall do xyz. we had a recent situation with a pa wanting to do thoracentesis. he had > 200 documented successful procedures at another facility and was refused based only on the fact he is a pa. ditto things like procedural sedation. I work under different rules for which drugs I can use at each place I work. np's are given a lot more respect and privilege by the hospital than pa's are. this needs to stop. other places I have worked advertise positions as np/pa and preferentially hire new grad direct entry np's over experienced pa's. this also needs to stop.

terns like dependent allied health provider need to be removed from hospital bylaws and replaced by PA.