Renaming of Physician Assistants to Practitioner of Allopathy

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Do you like the name Practitioner of Allopathy?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 18.5%
  • No

    Votes: 21 77.8%
  • Name suggestion posted bellow

    Votes: 1 3.7%

  • Total voters
    27

MTM

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Since I buried this suggestion in an act of thread necromancy on post #216 of an interrelated thread that went awry with vitriol I am creating this post to hopefully create a more productive discussion on possible names that fit the profession more correctly. If you are a PA or future PA, I think we should refrain from reinventing the wheel per say, and stick with the same initials for any new naming of the profession. Please feel free to constructively comment within the above perimeters or share your take on my suggestion.


As I posted in the old thread, I believe a fitting name for the profession that preserves the initials and position recognition would be Practitioner of Allopathy or Allopathic Practitioner (AP). This name conveys that PA's do run their own practice. It safely avoids conflict with the notoriety of the term DOCTOR. It conveys to patients that PAs are trained in the allopathic model of medicine in contrast to the nursing method of medicine while also conveying that PA's are on a similar level of practice as NPs.

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Since I buried this suggestion in an act of thread necromancy on post #216 of an interrelated thread that went awry with vitriol I am creating this post to hopefully create a more productive discussion on possible names that fit the profession more correctly. If you are a PA or future PA, I think we should refrain from reinventing the wheel per say, and stick with the same initials for any new naming of the profession. Please feel free to constructively comment within the above perimeters or share your take on my suggestion.


As I posted in the old thread, I believe a fitting name for the profession that preserves the initials and position recognition would be Practitioner of Allopathy or Allopathic Practitioner (AP). This name conveys that PA's do run their own practice. It safely avoids conflict with the notoriety of the term DOCTOR. It conveys to patients that PAs are trained in the allopathic model of medicine in contrast to the nursing method of medicine while also conveying that PA's are on a similar level of practice as NPs.

1. That name sounds ridiculous

2. What if they work with DOs (Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine)?

3. Physician Assistant will create much less confusion than Practitioner of Allopathy. That sounds like something from Harry Potter.
 
1. That name sounds ridiculous
Does doctor of osteopathic medicine sound ridiculous to you?

2. What if they work with DOs (Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine)?
I guess it would be like an MD who goes to an allopathic medical school working in the same practice as a DO that goes to an osteopathic medical school. What's your point?

3. Physician Assistant will create much less confusion than Practitioner of Allopathy. That sounds like something from Harry Potter.
I'm curious then, does doctor of osteopathic medicine sound like a sorcerer or is an allopathic medical school something you find in the lord of the rings? hum, I wounder.

People know what a Nurse Practitioner is. If someone was an Allopathic Practitioner, it would not be as large of a jump to make a correlation with then the terminology assistant (e.g. Doctor = high level, Practitioner = mid level). KISS, keep it simple stupid. I guess you could go with Practioning Associate but then we will get med students in here saying "oh we don't want to be associated with you". :laugh:

In my opinion telling someone you practice allopathic medicine would be a less confusing conversation. I would rather explain, that allopathic medicine is based on biological science and is what MDs study in med school then to trying and explain the power structure to a patient. Its a hum that's interesting I never knew that conversation, not a well what are you capable to do and do I need to talk to the doctor conversation because my son has a very bad cold and I think the doctor needs to look at him. Most people would continue to say I'm a PA just as people say they are MDs or DOs.
 
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Does doctor of osteopathic medicine sound ridiculous to you?

No, why should it ... it doesn't have an outdated term like 'practitioner' in it, nor does it contain the phrase 'allopathy,' which I don't think I've ever heard a single person use. It's far, far more confusing and less descriptive than physician assistant

I guess it would be like an MD who goes to an allopathic medical school working in the same practice as a DO that goes to an osteopathic medical school. What's your point?

Let me explain and rephrase for clarity ... What about DO schools that have PA programs? Take Nova Southeastern for example, they have a PA program where the students interact quite a bit with the med students. How would a college of osteopathic medicine hand out a 'practitioner of allopathy' degree? It makes no sense. Additionally, if you're working under an Osteopathic physician's license in his/her practice, how would it make sense to be a practitioner of allopathy? When MDs and DOs work together, they are working under their own shingle. It was my understanding that physicians and PAs really don't partner together ... it's more of supervised roll. So ... again, being a practitioner of allopathy being supervised by a doctor of osteopathic medicine ... errr, what???

I'm curious then, does doctor of osteopathic medicine sound like a sorcerer or is an allopathic medical school something you find in the lord of the rings? hum, I wounder.

No ... neither of those sound odd. However, neither of those contain the words 'practitioner' or 'allopathy,' which, when combined, do sound like some type of medicine man from lord of the rings

People know what a Nurse Practitioner is. If someone was an Allopathic Practitioner, it would not be as large of a jump to make a correlation with then the terminology assistant (e.g. Doctor = high level, Practitioner = mid level). KISS, keep it simple stupid. I guess you could go with Practioning Associate but then we will get med students in here saying "oh we don't want to be associated with you". :laugh:

People don't know what NPs are, nor do people know what Allopathic means, or Osteopathic, or anything else. Patients understand very, very little about the educational process. Most of the time they see a white coat and think doctor ... nothing more, nothing less. Additionally, changing it to associate makes no sense either. I really don't understand why assistant is something so awful. Didn't PAs pick the name???

Seems like if you want the title changed this bad, you should look into an already established field with a title that is more acceptable to you personally. I am 100% sure you aren't going to get people on board with the practitioner of allopathy idea, nor do you seem overtly happy with the current state of PA's image.
 
Additionally, changing it to associate makes no sense either. I really don't understand why assistant is something so awful. Didn't PAs pick the name???

.

historical note: early on the name of the profession was physician's associate. it was changed to physician assistant due to complaints from the ama and other physician groups.
http://www.pahx.org/artifacts/registryArtifacts.htm

agree that practitioner of allopathy is a silly name.
some of the canadians use "clinical associate" which seems to make a lot of folks happy. doesn't have "physician" in it or "assistant".
 
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1. That name sounds ridiculous

2. What if they work with DOs (Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine)?

3. Physician Assistant will create much less confusion than Practitioner of Allopathy. That sounds like something from Harry Potter.


:laugh: That's basically what I was thinking!


I do disagree about the "Physician Assistant" title not being confusing. Well, you're right, it certainly is less confusing than "Practitioner of Allopathy", but it's still not descriptive of what PAs do. We already have medical assistants, which is a certificate you earn in a few months leading to a crappy minimum wage job where you actually do assist physicians. PAs assist physicians in two ways: during surgery and by lessening patient loads outside of surgery. Other than that, it's not like they tail their physicians all day, every day with a thermometer and a chart.

I understand that people are going to push back at anything that somewhat hints of maybe possibly leading to midlevel independence, but restoring the PA title back to what it USED to be is not equivalent to turning them into DNP-style "noctors", which is how some people seem to be reacting to the proposal.
 
historical note: early on the name of the profession was physician's associate. it was changed to physician assistant due to complaints from the ama and other physician groups.
http://www.pahx.org/artifacts/registryArtifacts.htm

agree that practitioner of allopathy is a silly name.
some of the canadians use "clinical associate" which seems to make a lot of folks happy. doesn't have "physician" in it or "assistant".

I like it.
 
This is about the dumbest **** I've ever heard.
 
:lame:

Nobody outside the medical community has any clue what "allopathy" is. All it would do is confuse patients while maybe making PAs feel slightly better about themselves. That seems counterintuitive.
 
1. That name sounds ridiculous

3. Physician Assistant will create much less confusion than Practitioner of Allopathy. That sounds like something from Harry Potter.

It totally sounds like something from Harry Potter, but your saying it wrong, it's not Allopathy, it's All-OOOH-pathy. *insert wand of practionair of allopathy waive". :laugh:
 
Considering the roots of the term "allopath" are antagonistic from a disgruntled quack, I'd ignore this term.

Physician's Assistant is perfect.

Since I buried this suggestion in an act of thread necromancy on post #216 of an interrelated thread that went awry with vitriol I am creating this post to hopefully create a more productive discussion on possible names that fit the profession more correctly. If you are a PA or future PA, I think we should refrain from reinventing the wheel per say, and stick with the same initials for any new naming of the profession. Please feel free to constructively comment within the above perimeters or share your take on my suggestion.


As I posted in the old thread, I believe a fitting name for the profession that preserves the initials and position recognition would be Practitioner of Allopathy or Allopathic Practitioner (AP). This name conveys that PA's do run their own practice. It safely avoids conflict with the notoriety of the term DOCTOR. It conveys to patients that PAs are trained in the allopathic model of medicine in contrast to the nursing method of medicine while also conveying that PA's are on a similar level of practice as NPs.
 
Seeing that this is a physician owned site with probably a 1:1,000 PA to MD/DO ratio, any name that brings PAs in a better light will probably be refuted here.


Nonetheless, Practitioner of allopathy is a ridiculous name. I understand keeping the "PA" acronym is important, but still. I think anyone can agree that no PA is the doctor "Assistant." The only way one can argue that the PA is by "assisting" the Physician/clinic owner by decreasing their patient load. Well, in that sense, any Physician would be "assisting" the hospital for which he works for too. But, that certainly isn't the case, then why would it be for a PA? Physician Associate defines it better, but I also like this "clinical associate" name being thrown out there.
 
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Isn't "allopathy" a term that originates in homeopathy? If so, making it an official term for anything lends credibility to homeopathy. And that can't happen.
 
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