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deleted6669
Most folks who see a specialty pa think they have seen a physician despite:
1.brochure handed to pts in hospital waiting room explaining what pa is and our role
2.intro as a pa
3.nametag that says pa
4.lab coat that says pa
5.script that says pa
6.aftervisit summary that says pa
7.business card that says pa....
then at the end of the visit: " thanks doc".
when folks send notes to our medical director either positive or negative they almost always say " I saw dr smith and he was wonderful" or "I saw dr smith and he left me in pain", etc
in a private practice folks probably know what a pa is but for single visits to a hospital based em/ortho/surgical/cardiology pa despite all of the above folks just don't get it.
case in point-many physicians don't even know what to call us appropriately. they say physician'S assistant. there is no 's. we don't belong to them. and when we nicely correct them they say" same thing, right?".
how do you think opthalmologists would respond if they were constantly refered to as optometrists?.
some consultants(maybe 5-10% of md's in some settings) only want to speak with our attendings about OUR pts despite the fact that our attendings know nothing about the pt because, well, it's not their pt, it's ours. in the normal course of things most of our pts are never seen by our attendings unless we ask them to.
it can take a long time to find a job where all the md consultants are willing to discuss cases with a pa. I went through 3 jobs over 7 years before I found a setting where this was so. mostly it was about moving to a more pa friendly state with a long history of pa utilization and where the docs trained alongside pa's and knew we were more than medical assistants. seriously, some surgeons won't believe a pt has ct proven appendicitis unless a doc tells them EXACTLY THE SAME THING THAT I JUST DID.
We take far more crap from physicians and other health care professionals that we do from pts.
nurses who are pro-np hate us as we are "taking away np jobs". they even go so far as to refuse common orders unless cosigned by an md/do(totally illegal by the way).
know what happens if no one stops them? pa's quit and only np's will work at those places.don't tell me it doesn't happen.I have seen it first hand. it took firing every nurse who refused appropriate orders for this to stop. that took ten yrs. in the interim all the pa's quit and they hired np's. it took the er medical director becoming chief of staff of the hospital and firing all involved nurses for this to end. now he wants all the open slots to be filled by pa's and whenever an np quits he hires a pa to replace them.
just like I wouldn't presume to tell a member of an ethnic minority that they are not oppressed I don't think non-pa's have any idea of what our day to day practice/experience is like. it's taken me > A DECADE to find a place that appreciates pa's.
trust me on this. I've been involved with the pa profession longer than you have been alive.
pm pacmatt or bandit here at the pa forum. they are em docs that used to be paramedics and pas. they will tell you about some of the frustrations involved. they get it. that's why they moved on. over the years I considered going back to medschool multiple times, even took the prereqs, etc but I just couldn't justify the expense at this point in my life(they are both younger than I am). I would break even financially the year I retire having missed years of my kids lives. my real cost to attend medschool is> 1 million dollars when you consider lost wages and price of school, etc.
ps regarding DO's name. there are multiple threads here about changing the name. do a search for MDO. that is the current name many of them want( medical doctor of ostepathy).
1.brochure handed to pts in hospital waiting room explaining what pa is and our role
2.intro as a pa
3.nametag that says pa
4.lab coat that says pa
5.script that says pa
6.aftervisit summary that says pa
7.business card that says pa....
then at the end of the visit: " thanks doc".
when folks send notes to our medical director either positive or negative they almost always say " I saw dr smith and he was wonderful" or "I saw dr smith and he left me in pain", etc
in a private practice folks probably know what a pa is but for single visits to a hospital based em/ortho/surgical/cardiology pa despite all of the above folks just don't get it.
case in point-many physicians don't even know what to call us appropriately. they say physician'S assistant. there is no 's. we don't belong to them. and when we nicely correct them they say" same thing, right?".
how do you think opthalmologists would respond if they were constantly refered to as optometrists?.
some consultants(maybe 5-10% of md's in some settings) only want to speak with our attendings about OUR pts despite the fact that our attendings know nothing about the pt because, well, it's not their pt, it's ours. in the normal course of things most of our pts are never seen by our attendings unless we ask them to.
it can take a long time to find a job where all the md consultants are willing to discuss cases with a pa. I went through 3 jobs over 7 years before I found a setting where this was so. mostly it was about moving to a more pa friendly state with a long history of pa utilization and where the docs trained alongside pa's and knew we were more than medical assistants. seriously, some surgeons won't believe a pt has ct proven appendicitis unless a doc tells them EXACTLY THE SAME THING THAT I JUST DID.
We take far more crap from physicians and other health care professionals that we do from pts.
nurses who are pro-np hate us as we are "taking away np jobs". they even go so far as to refuse common orders unless cosigned by an md/do(totally illegal by the way).
know what happens if no one stops them? pa's quit and only np's will work at those places.don't tell me it doesn't happen.I have seen it first hand. it took firing every nurse who refused appropriate orders for this to stop. that took ten yrs. in the interim all the pa's quit and they hired np's. it took the er medical director becoming chief of staff of the hospital and firing all involved nurses for this to end. now he wants all the open slots to be filled by pa's and whenever an np quits he hires a pa to replace them.
just like I wouldn't presume to tell a member of an ethnic minority that they are not oppressed I don't think non-pa's have any idea of what our day to day practice/experience is like. it's taken me > A DECADE to find a place that appreciates pa's.
trust me on this. I've been involved with the pa profession longer than you have been alive.
pm pacmatt or bandit here at the pa forum. they are em docs that used to be paramedics and pas. they will tell you about some of the frustrations involved. they get it. that's why they moved on. over the years I considered going back to medschool multiple times, even took the prereqs, etc but I just couldn't justify the expense at this point in my life(they are both younger than I am). I would break even financially the year I retire having missed years of my kids lives. my real cost to attend medschool is> 1 million dollars when you consider lost wages and price of school, etc.
ps regarding DO's name. there are multiple threads here about changing the name. do a search for MDO. that is the current name many of them want( medical doctor of ostepathy).
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