Regarding Pathologist Assistant, PA, AA...

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MedusaFelix

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So, I have a couple of questions, but before I post any of them: If I have questions about Pathologist's Assistant, do I post here or on the Pathology forum?

And the other question: Are there other healthcare jobs at the PA level that I'm not aware of? I know there are those related to nursing, like NP, CRNA, Nurse Midwife. What about other jobs not related to nursing? For example, I had no idea Pathologist's Assistants or Anesthesiologist Assistants existed until I stumbled on it while reading up on what Physician Assistants did.

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This forum is essentially all practitioners who are not Physicians or Doctorate level practitioners (or student doctors, or soon to be student doctors), so yes you would post here. If you had a question about Pathology Assistants that was directly related somehow to Pathologists I'm sure they probably wouldn't

Other than the Pathology Assistant and Anesthesiology Assistant which you already mentioned, there is also the Radiology Assistant: https://www.asrt.org/main/careers/radiologist-assistant. As it sounds, a mid-level radiology physician extender. I've never seen one though, I get the impression they are not very popular or in demand.

Respiratory also just moved forward with instituting it's own Masters level mid-level provider, the Advanced Practice Respiratory Therapist or APRT: http://www.coarc.com/73.html. The AARC, CoARC, and the NBRC (the three groups which "control" respiratory in the US) approved of instituting the APRT earlier this year, and the first degree programs are tentatively planned to begin sometime around 2020. As an RT myself I very selfishly would love to see this actually happen, but the realist in me doesn't see how they could really carve out any turf between PA's and NP's. You could maybe argue they would be better at cardiopulmonary than an NP/PA, but would that be enough? I doubt it. They will most likely go the way of the Radiology Assistant - no one will know or even really care that they exist.
 
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