it's the fact that our ACTUAL scope of practice is minimized around here that is the issue.
there are lots of threads here about "pa's only do h+p's" and very little acknowledgement that senior pa's run rural er's and ICU's solo, manage primary care practices without physicians on site, provide the only medical staff for US embassies around the world, staff the white house medical clinic, work as peace corps medical officers without on site physicians, work in all branches of the military and federal services in all specialties with a large degree of autonomy, etc.
the #2 guy at the US public health service under the surgeon general is a PA.
http://www.usphs.gov/profession/healthservices/healtheducation/cpo.aspx
the army flight surgeon of the yr this year was a PA.
http://www.daily-tribune.com/view/f...rdsman-named-Army-flight-surgeon--of-the-year
PA's serve as county coroners:
http://www.jameslkramer.com/coroner.html
when dick cheney shot his friend it was the pa with the vp who saved the guys life:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184957,00.html
when President Clinton first had heart surgery a PA was 1st assist on the procedure at columbia medical ctr in NYC:
http://www.columbiasurgery.org/news/clinton_surgery.html
the first PA to physician 3 yr bridge program opened 2 years ago. pa's get credit for an entire clinical year of school.:
http://lecom.edu/college-medicine.php/Accelerated-Physician-Assistant-Pathway-APAP/49/2205/612/2395
the current class is doing as well or better than the traditional students.
the average med student here on sdn probably thinks pa's are only good for suturing once an all powerful md makes the decision that it is required and tells them how many sutures to put in and then has to check on their work to make sure they did it right.....they think we use "algorithms" for everything. we don't. we practice MEDICINE. we practice under our own licenses and dea #s. as a senior em pa when I don't know the answer to something and ask an em doc ( maybe with 1-2% of my patients) the vast majority of the time they don't know the answer either and I end up consulting a specialist. with some docs I just skip over them from the start because I know they won't have a clue. the brighter ones I still ask.
many senior pa's work with minimal to no physician oversight. many pa's train junior md residents. I have at 2 of my prior jobs. at one I was the only preceptor for the interns rotation. I wrote the eval and submitted it to the residency director.
we are the rodney dangerfields of medicine(for those of you old enough to get the reference)...we can't get no respect....