advancement as a pa

[MrJosh9788]

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I am most likely going to enter a PA program, but is there any career advancement with a PA?

 

[Chronic Student]

It depends on where you work, namely private vs. public sector.

You can be a lead PA on a team in the public setting.

In the private sector your advancement has more to do with experience and pay.

As far as typical corporate ladder type thing, not so much.

 

[deleted6669]

within my specialty there certainly is:
entry level: fast track/urgent care
next: community hospital moderate acuity
next: chief pa or trauma ctr pa
top: solo coverage of small dept or working main dept at busy facility seeing all comers or working international assignment or very rural assignment with no backup(solo coverage aleutian islands with closest backup 6 hrs away by plane....)

 

[dfk]

within my specialty there certainly is:
entry level: fast track/urgent care
next: community hospital moderate acuity
next: chief pa or trauma ctr pa
top: solo coverage of small dept or working main dept at busy facility seeing all comers or working international assignment or very rural assignment with no backup(solo coverage aleutian islands with closest backup 6 hrs away by plane....)

question for taurus:
what makes this any different than a CRNA doing rural independent practice?

 

[deleted6669]

question for taurus:
what makes this any different than a CRNA doing rural independent practice?

The pa who does this( a friend of mine) by law has a supervising physician of record who reviews all of his charts and is available for phone consult at all times. he can present cases by phone, fax ekg's, have pacs xrays overread distantly, etc so although it is a solo position it is not independent practice.

 

[dfk]

The pa who does this( a friend of mine) by law has a supervising physician of record who reviews all of his charts and is available for phone consult at all times. he can present cases by phone, fax ekg's, have pacs xrays overread distantly, etc so although it is a solo position it is not independent practice.

six hours by plane sure sounds independent to me.
in an emergency, you telling me the doc on speaker phone is gonna run the show???

 

[deleted6669]

six hours by plane sure sounds independent to me.
in an emergency, you telling me the doc on speaker phone is gonna run the show???

nope, he runs the show and gets consults as needed.
I have a similar job here on the mainland, although backup is a lot closer.
if he(or I ) do a substandard job we get fired.
if an independent np does a substandard job no one knows about it.
that's the difference.

 

[dfk]

nope, he runs the show and gets consults as needed.
I have a similar job here on the mainland, although backup is a lot closer.
if he(or I ) do a substandard job we get fired.
if an independent np does a substandard job no one knows about it.
that's the difference.

i really don't know what to say about this or what to think.
i'm not favoring nor siding with whomever, but this is a stick
against nurses and favor for "medicine side" providers.
regardless of how close back-up is, isn't this the argument about
being "supervised" and having the "best [sic] hands" nearby??

 

[Febrifuge]

I wouldn't presume to speak for EMed, but I think the argument is the same one. His point is that because by design the PA/MD team has the 'supervision' in place, there is always someone else who is sharing the responsibility, and the oversight. In the independent model, for instance with an NP, if something goes wrong the only one who knows is the one who was there and did the charting, because there is no mandated review of that charting.

It's the same with an MD... although we're talking here about mid-levels.

 

[lapelirroja]

Also remember that this is an underserved area. It's not taking jobs away from MDs because none are choosing to go there! I think it's great what the PA is doing to bring medical care to those that otherwise wouldn't have any (besides the 6hrs away where the MD is).

Additionally, the way I see it, this PA is doing what the creators of the profession intended: provide primary care to those individuals who otherwise wouldn't receive any. That isn't exactly overstepping any bounds, it's just PAs nowadays have a more fluid definition of what they want their practice goals to be.