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From Medical Economics, Sept 2012, page 55.

 

Article by Thomas J. Ferkovic RPh, MS, managing director, SS&G Healthcare Services LLC, Akron, Ohio under "Adding Midlevel Providers"

 

 

"Examine your practice and decide which type of midlevel provider would be beneficial. For example, if you plan to let the midlevel see patients for follow-up appointments without direct physician involvement, or grow his or her own pool of patients, consider hiring a nurse practitioner. Practices that perform routine physical exams can use physician's assistants."

 

This journal circulates to several hundred thousand physicians. Do you think this is accurate? The address for feedback on the article is given as medec@advanstar.com

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my response:

Physician assistants are equally capable of seeing new patients and managing a panel. A typical PA in 2012 has a masters degree and over 6 years of training not including prior health care experience before starting PA school. PA schools are taught on the medical model, by physicians, with the second year of pa school very similar to the third clinical year of medical school. Please post a correction to this article. Thousands of PA's manage their own panels of patients in private practice as well as in government service in all military branches and the VA medical system.

Eric Holden, PA, MS

Doctoral Student, Global Health

Board Of Directors, PA's for Tomorrow

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I think this is a huge PR issue. The world sees PAs on a tier below NPs. They (NPs) have done a great job promoting themselves. We have a lot of catching up to do. But this is not just the view of one person in one isolated journal but is endemic or should I say pandemic.

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This is just NPs getting what the CNA, LPN/LVN, RN, BSN, MSN, NP, DNP, CNM, and CRNA association dues paid for. Community reputation. At the end of the day, PAs are competition for jobs. Some physicians specifically prefer PAs (vice versa as well) because of a perceived advantage in education/training and that is just the type of mentality that their lobby is trying to break up. Their fight at the state level against the boards of medical examiners is a SLAM DUNK and they will dominate family medicine without a doubt in the future. For every shortcoming the Docs come up with, a nursing program will sure up the education system to accommodate for it. I honestly don't think they will be horrible at it. The idea that someone can't step-wise attain the amount of knowledge a doctor has without 4 consecutive years of medical school and a residency is the trick the MD and DO community likes to pull. He!! MDs haven't even recognized DOs in full yet and they attend the same residency. I don't hate NPs. I just think they went a different route to get to where (the collective) we are at than I did. Anyone who has worked with a good bit of both will likely agree that the differences in skill are based in the individual and not the educational differences between the NP and PA because some PAs run circles around NPs and other PAs and some NPs can flip that same role. I think that it's just them playing the game to win Docs minds over for those NPs who don't want to own their own practice. It grows the profession and with more dues comes more advocacy. When Docs hire a PA, they are still promoting themselves. When they hire an NP, they may have a team mate in the office but they are funding the erosion of their profession in the grand scheme. Whatever. I suppose their problem to deal with. I'll support an organization which represents PAs fairly. I hope PAFT cleans this up. I don't need an advantage. I can get that myself. I am just looking for fairness.

 

Anyway, this guy's wife is probably an NP. Joke's on us.

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this is telling. go to the aapa website and type in "public relations" in the search box. what you get is this:

Public Relations Committee

The Public Relations Committee was retired in 2010.

their last report:

http://www.aapa.org/uploadedFiles/content/Common/Files/PRC-509.pdf

 

basically the summary says" no one asked us to do anything this year or for the next 5 years"

their goal was to "encourage pa's to become advocates in their daily practice and their communities"

 

 

(wow, retired without ever doing anything....)

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this is telling. go to the aapa website and type in "public relations" in the search box. what you get is this:

Public Relations Committee

The Public Relations Committee was retired in 2010.

their last report:

http://www.aapa.org/uploadedFiles/content/Common/Files/PRC-509.pdf

 

basically the summary says" no one asked us to do anything this year or for the next 5 years"

their goal was to "encourage pa's to become advocates in their daily practice and their communities"

 

 

(wow, retired without ever doing anything....)

 

I will not be sending my dues this year.

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"For example, if you plan to let the midlevel see patients for follow-up appointments without direct physician involvement, or grow his or her own pool of patients, consider hiring a nurse practitioner ...

 

... because a Nurse Practitioner's education accreditation has no involvement with Medical Doctors whatsoever. Err, wait, what? Maybe you SHOULD go see a PA."

 

What a great article! I must have remembered that last part from where I read it, can't remember now 'skritch skritch' ...

 

Sounds like RPh, MS isn't the way to go in life lol

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The article has been changed.

 

Practices that perform routine physical exams can use Physicians'assistants.

 

 

If the [s']is the change from the ['s], then it is Still wrong. The correction should read " physician ( no apostrophe at all) assistants". The plural form of the assistant suffices)

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