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Are you for or against a name change? (Poll)


Do you support a name change?  

107 members have voted

  1. 1. Name change?

    • Yes
      96
    • No
      11


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People are too ingrained with the whole "assistant" term to be able to move past it. This has got to go.

 

Just look at the definition:

as·sis·tant

noun

1. a person who ranks below a senior person.

"the managing director and his assistant"

synonyms: helper, deputy, second-in-command, second, number two, right-hand man/woman, aide, attendant, mate, apprentice, junior, auxiliary, subordinate;

2. a person who helps in particular work.

 

I'm particularly a fan of changing it to "physician associate" for ease and association. Retaining "physician" keeps to the roots of the profession and how our training is aligned.

 

as·so·ci·ate

1. a partner or colleague in business or at work.

"he arranged for a close associate to take control of the institute"

synonyms: partner, colleague, coworker, workmate, comrade, ally, affiliate, confederate

2. a person with limited or subordinate membership in an organization.

 

I'd even side with "medical practitioner" which will go toe-to-toe with the nurse practitioners. But this may create confusion with other medical practitioners, such as physicians.

 

As for "paraphysician," I had never heard of that until this thread. Based on a quick Google search, it appears to be more of a US-specific term. It sounds kind of cool, but I am hesitant to support it since it reminds me of "paralegal" or "paramedic." Wiki states, "Paraprofessional is a job title given to persons in various occupational fields, such as education, healthcare, engineering, and law, are trained to assist professionals but do not themselves have professional licensure....The Greek prefix "para-" indicates beside or side by side (as in "parallel"); hence, a paraprofessional is one who works alongside a professional. A paraprofessional is able to perform tasks requiring significant knowledge in the field, and may even function independently of direct professional supervision, but lacks the official authority of the professional." I feel like this would create more confusion than we already have, especially for laypeople.

 

As for "Advanced Practice Providers," once again this might create confusion just on the very wording. Also, will I have "John Doe, APP" on my badge? In this technologic age of ours, I'd rather not have "APP" at the end of my name.

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I kind of like AP - advanced practitioner. Definitely more than APP. MP makes me think of military police. Physician Associate lets us keep PA and gets rid of assistant. It sounds kind of nonsensical but so does nurse practitioner.

My only issue with "Advanced Practitioner" for PA/NP is compared to whom are we advanced? The only other practitioner around are Docs and I don't think we are "advanced" compared to them. I never understood the logic behind this and why this name was chosen by a lot of hospitals/systems. Mine uses AHP (Allied Health Provider) which equally sucks.

 

I think if we want something logical and self explanatory for PAs, medical practitioner is as simple and accurate as it can get.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

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Why not?  PA school is med school lite, not nursing school "plus", so I have no issue with maintaining our connection with "the medical model".

 

 

ugh  "med school lite"   

 

nope it is not - it is PA school.....

 

maybe you meant "med school like"?

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