- Joined
- Feb 28, 2002
- Messages
- 98
- Reaction score
- 2
This will probably start the most confrontational debate ever on this forum, but I hope not. My name is Matt, and I have been a PA since 98'. I will be leaving my incredible job in family practice to start medical school in early August. I woke up one morning in July this past summer only to realize that I was not satisfied with my career. Even with a doc who treats me like another doc, and a wonderful salary and benefits, I was not happy.
I registered for the MCAT and enrolled in Organic and Physics (my last pre-reqs) in the course of a few days. I scored average on the MCAT and was accepted at two medical schools in Texas.I love my patients, and I know that they will miss me as well, but I sort of became tired of the rhetoric that our profession dishes out in regard to "team approach to medicine", when in fact PA's generally work independently. I was tired of feeling like I had to apologize that the doctor was not available, and I felt like I was doing my patients a disservice by being their only source of medical care and not a physician. My patients do not and did not seem to mind, but I did mind. In fact, I began to feel like I was practicing medicine without a license. I honestly feel that PA's have a useful niche in medicine, but I think that niche has been expanded to the point that it now is more common to hire a PA because it is financially appealling to group practices, when in fact the nature of PA's is to use them where physicians will not go. I applaud those PA's who have gone to underserved areas of the country, but most PA's practice in urban areas where patients could just as easily find a physician to see.
I find it comical how we try to distance ourselves from NP's in order to stay in the good graces of physicians, when most of us all know that we are just as independent if not more than NPS's. I don't know any NP's that operate their own practices, so it is only in the legal sense that PA's are any different than NP's in regard to independence. The bottom line is that we are competition for physicians, so why do we try so hard to hide this fact. An example of this competition is my own position in family practice. My group could easily find and take on a new FP out of residency, but why not hire a PA who they can pay 25% less or so, and who has no real future stake in the practice? I will always respect our profession and the members of our profession, but I hope to see our ranks become more about doing what we were designed to do, promoting care in underserved areas.
Lastly, I think our political leaders do not do enough to help promote the PA to physician transition because they do not want people to feel that such a transition is appropriate. How many of you know of any real AAPA sanctioned discussion or agreement in place to help PA's transition into medicine more easily as physicians? The only thing similar to such can be found at the end of every issue of PA magazine or the AAPA newsletter, and it is an add for IUHS, a bogus internet medical school designed to make PA's think they can complete a physician education online somehow! I am ashamed that our leaders even allow such an add to be placed. In my transition into becoming a physician, I found nothing that even discussed how to make such a leap, and thus I am doing it the old fashioned way. I think in the future it will become acceptable and most practical for there to somehow be a way to combine the trainging of a PA and a physician. Without such, there will always be frustrated PA's who wish to take the next step, and overqualified 1st year PA-C medical students. It is entirely realistic that a PA could be credited for at least 18 months of medical school, mostly during years 2 and 3.
I registered for the MCAT and enrolled in Organic and Physics (my last pre-reqs) in the course of a few days. I scored average on the MCAT and was accepted at two medical schools in Texas.I love my patients, and I know that they will miss me as well, but I sort of became tired of the rhetoric that our profession dishes out in regard to "team approach to medicine", when in fact PA's generally work independently. I was tired of feeling like I had to apologize that the doctor was not available, and I felt like I was doing my patients a disservice by being their only source of medical care and not a physician. My patients do not and did not seem to mind, but I did mind. In fact, I began to feel like I was practicing medicine without a license. I honestly feel that PA's have a useful niche in medicine, but I think that niche has been expanded to the point that it now is more common to hire a PA because it is financially appealling to group practices, when in fact the nature of PA's is to use them where physicians will not go. I applaud those PA's who have gone to underserved areas of the country, but most PA's practice in urban areas where patients could just as easily find a physician to see.
I find it comical how we try to distance ourselves from NP's in order to stay in the good graces of physicians, when most of us all know that we are just as independent if not more than NPS's. I don't know any NP's that operate their own practices, so it is only in the legal sense that PA's are any different than NP's in regard to independence. The bottom line is that we are competition for physicians, so why do we try so hard to hide this fact. An example of this competition is my own position in family practice. My group could easily find and take on a new FP out of residency, but why not hire a PA who they can pay 25% less or so, and who has no real future stake in the practice? I will always respect our profession and the members of our profession, but I hope to see our ranks become more about doing what we were designed to do, promoting care in underserved areas.
Lastly, I think our political leaders do not do enough to help promote the PA to physician transition because they do not want people to feel that such a transition is appropriate. How many of you know of any real AAPA sanctioned discussion or agreement in place to help PA's transition into medicine more easily as physicians? The only thing similar to such can be found at the end of every issue of PA magazine or the AAPA newsletter, and it is an add for IUHS, a bogus internet medical school designed to make PA's think they can complete a physician education online somehow! I am ashamed that our leaders even allow such an add to be placed. In my transition into becoming a physician, I found nothing that even discussed how to make such a leap, and thus I am doing it the old fashioned way. I think in the future it will become acceptable and most practical for there to somehow be a way to combine the trainging of a PA and a physician. Without such, there will always be frustrated PA's who wish to take the next step, and overqualified 1st year PA-C medical students. It is entirely realistic that a PA could be credited for at least 18 months of medical school, mostly during years 2 and 3.
