Title discrimination

[2234leej]

Okay, so they get to leave 1.5 hours early on Tuesday & Thursday?...

Just because PA school pharm should be easier for them doesn't negate the enormous amounts of non-pharm training it will entail.

And to be fair, foreign-trained MDs that choose so, have to "slog" through all of PA school to become PAs. There is no advanced standing.

 

And the rabidness is rational interest for the future of the PA profession. Which compared to NP lobbies, we are sorely lacking in...

 

 

 

 

What you're stating is not unreasonable. But I'm once-bitten, twice shy in terms of inviting (or inventing) broader scopes/practice without likewise advancement of the PA profession in the same arena. FNPs have done so much to advance their position as PCPs in recent years, that the introduction of APPs (Advance Practice Pharmacists) makes me question where the future of FM/primary care lies for PAs. It has been my continuing interest both before and during PA school to work in Family Med, but I feel that the role for which we were specifically conceived has been slowly pulled away from us (and somewhat abandoned). Despite my reservations with NP training overall, they do have the FNP specific track. If APPs begin to fill some primary care functions; how long until someone proposes they fill most or all? Just my thoughts.

 

I am currently in school to become a family nurse practitioner, and I will never degrade the PA profession or promote that NP's are superior. They're both going to be vital for decades to come. Even with pharmacists in advanced standing, PA's aren't going anywhere in the context of FM/primary care. I just don't see it happening. If the pharmacists want to do just as much as NP's and PA's, there will be tremendous backlash from both professions.

[tompkbr]

This is a start.  I think you can go further.  PharmD's dominate Step 1 handily from what I have read.  I doubt they need the PA version of "basic science" coursework.

 

Realistically, the proposed scenario is kinda ridiculous.  Few PharmD's have any interest in picking up an MMS.  They will design an assessment curriculum to tack on as a post-cert if this is a major roadblock.  Potentially 6 months didactic and 6 months of clinical.  Less if they specialize.  Not terribly different than every PA who pipe dreams about a bridge to MD.

Interestingly, my program had a combined PhamD/MSPA option for the pharm students.  Few did it (1/60 in the class above me, none in my class, and 1-2, I think, in the class below).  Don't remember all the specifics, but they did not take pharm with us (I believe that was the only thing they didn't take).  Never really understood the advantage of a PharmD + PA however (except for more $ for the university). 

[PACdan]

This is a start.  I think you can go further.  PharmD's dominate Step 1 handily from what I have read.  I doubt they need the PA version of "basic science" coursework.

 

Realistically, the proposed scenario is kinda ridiculous.  Few PharmD's have any interest in picking up an MMS.  They will design an assessment curriculum to tack on as a post-cert if this is a major roadblock.  Potentially 6 months didactic and 6 months of clinical.  Less if they specialize.  Not terribly different than every PA who pipe dreams about a bridge to MD.

 

 

Not ridiculous at all when you consider that foreign trained physicians don't get accelerated standing in MD/DO/PA or even NP programs. I'm quite sure PharmDs would have little interest in doing a full PA program, and would prefer to have something abbreviated. But I'm saying I wouldn't, nor do I think our professions should encourage or support that. The law cited earlier involving California pharmacists stated they must have completed a 1-year residency or specialty certification to gain the expanded practice scope and be designated an APP. If they desire even more "provider" rights on top of that, logically something would have to be added onto that 1 year residency or speciality cert (idk how easily they are obtained). At that point how far out from an NP or PA program are you really? I don't think the 6 & 6 cuts it if they're already needing a 1 year residency to get this APP status.

 

My overall assertion is that these non-physican provider pathways already exist in PAs and NPs. I don't see the logic in digging more channels to the same end. Some PhDs are so medically focused (medical biology, infectious diseases, oncology) that you could make the argument for them doing what the PharmDs are doing, with some added certs or residency, and then acting as "providers" in their arena. PharmDs deal with a large aspect of modern medicine, the prescription drug, but it is by no means a complete picture of the art & science of human health and medicine.

[db_pavnp]

Not ridiculous at all when you consider that foreign trained physicians don't get accelerated standing in MD/DO/PA or even NP programs.

 

You are generally using examples of things that are kinda wrong to justify further things that are kinda wrong.  The lack of advanced standing is the core, misguided insult here.  The fact that it doesn't exist for one group doesn't make it any smarter for other groups.  Yes, this is the way education in the US functions.  Schools and professions both tremendously gain by limiting advanced standing and every imaginable roadblock is constructed to insure that.

 

I also don't feel it is terribly valid to try to compare the great, large, vast world of FMG's to US trained PharmDs.  Ironically, FMG's have an advanced standing pathway open to them - the USMLE to become an MD.  Anyway, the topic is too complicated to bother with here.

 

To use the length of California's thing as the basis for recommending the length of other or similar programs ignores the million things that dictated the length of California's program which have nothing to do with the educational needs of a PharmD.  This argument places far too much faith into a pilot program designed to test the waters in a state that, in many ways, is extremely conservative when it comes to certifying health care professionals.

[PACdan]

This argument places far too much faith into a pilot program designed to test the waters in a state that, in many ways, is extremely conservative when it comes to certifying health care professionals.

 

 

I would rather it be tested in a more conservative/stringent environment versus one less so.

[BruceBanner]

I do not think PharmD's should be prescribing. Vaccinations, fine. But scripts, no. There has to be a hard line here. You go through standardized training to diagnose and treat, pass boards, get licensed, or you dont. No in between.

 

As far as the PT thing, there is big difference between military PTs who are treating >90% fit, mostly healthy males between 18-40ish and treating the general population with all manner of comorbidities, meds, and uncontrolled lifestyle factors. Again, the line just becomes too ambiguous. It thinks it's totally appropriate in the confines of a military setting, but not in the gen pop. 

 

It's not so much that prescribing routine drugs for routine concerns is very complex, it's the old adage that it's fine until it isnt. Patients will take the path of least resistance, and if that means seeing the Walgreen's Pharmacist for their "strep throat" then that's what they will do.