Ailments such as the common cold, the flu, and allergies result in an unknown number of Americans seeking assistance from medical care providers each year. Add births, deaths, serious illnesses, and emergency services to this, and the figures surrounding the medical care professional to patient ratio is staggering. The sheer number of Americans who seek medical attention precludes doctors from serving the American public on their own, and as anyone who has sought medical attention knows, the availability of the doctor’s support staff is often what makes getting a “doctor’s” appointment possible.
One of the most valuable members of any physician’s support staff is the physicians assistant, and without the help of this individual, neither the medical profession nor America could remain healthy for very long. According to Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn’s article Physician Assistants in the United States (n. d. ): Physician assistants are clinicians who are licensed throughout the United States to practice medicine in association with physicians.
They perform many of the tasks previously done solely by their physician partners, including examination, diagnosis [. . . as well as treatment and prescribing.Absent the inclusion of physician assistants in the medical care profession, many Americans would be unable to get the advice and treatment needed for non-life-threatening conditions. Although not a situation that would bring our nation to its knees, the inability to seek care for ailments like the common cold and the flu would be a significant inconvenience to the population, and in the case of the elderly and other “at risk” persons, could lead to more serious complications and/or death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006, table 105).
The physician assistant is not a new member of the healthcare profession: they have been serving the public since “the mid-1960s,” and their roots date back to 17th century Europe (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. d. ). The early role of the physician assistant in the United States was to treat patients in remote areas. This allowed doctors to remain in their centrally located offices and hospitals while still ensuring rural patients received adequate healthcare (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. d.
).As the American population increased, the role of the physician assistant grew to include their providing services alongside doctors in their offices and hospitals (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. d. ).
There can be little doubt regarding the need of physician assistants: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Center for Health Statistics 45. 5% of “a sample of the civilian non-institutionalized population” sought the services of a physician in 2003 (2006, table 75).Basically, almost one-half of all Americans visit a healthcare facility of one kind or another between one and three times annually. The reported population of “California [.
. . ] the nation’s most populous state in 2003” was 35. 5 million people (Census Bureau). That means between 1.
6 and 4. 8 million doctor’s appointments were set in 2003 in California alone.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Center for Health Statistics reported that the number of physicians in California in 2003 was 25. per 10,000 civilians (2006, table 105). That means there were only 3,550 physicians available in California to report to the millions of appointments set in the state—obviously, they could not do it alone, and physician assistants were one means of meeting patient needs.
There may be concern in the minds of some that a physician assistant isn’t qualified to help in times of medical necessity, but this is not the case: Physician assistants spend an average of 25 months studying an intensive core curriculum.This resembles a shortened form of traditional medical education, and emphasizes a primary care, generalist approach. Most students have had four years of medical experience before they start their training. (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n.
d. ) The training does not end there for a physician assistant: every two years they are required to complete one-hundred hours of continuing medical education, and every six years,physician assistants are required to re-certify their skill sets: in many ways, they are forced to stay more current than many doctors (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. d. ).Additionally, the physician assistant works in conjunction with a medical doctor and can best be described as “interdependent semi-autonomous clinicians practicing in partnership with physicians, [who] are found in almost every medical and surgical specialty” (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. d.
). Today’s physician assistants do more than balance the workload for doctors: they continue to provide much-needed alternate services: “With their training modified as needed to integrate with local health systems, physician assistants are a viable alternative to physicians in areas with shortages of doctors” (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n. . ).
This means that areas more likely to suffer from farming accidents, mining disasters, or similar location- and/or professional-based medical events may have personnel in the area who have specialized training designed to meet the unique needs of the community they serve. It also means communities that do not have sufficient doctors available to serve them can rely on physician assistants for help with their medical care.The future of the medical profession will certainly include the physician assistant; in fact, according to Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn’s article Physician Assistants in the United States (n. d.
): “the numbers of practicing physician assistants [is] projected to reach [. . . ] 79,000 by 2015. ” The increasing number of available physician assistants, coupled with the ever-expanding services they can provide will help ensure that the growing American population can seek the advice and care of a medical professional whether the ailment is as simple as a cold or as catastrophic as a life-threatening injury.
The evolution of the profession [. . . ] is likely to involve a degree of innovation not yet conceptualized. With their continuing commitment to competency based primary care, improved access to care, and dynamic lifelong learning, physician assistants are well positioned to remain integral to the 21st century US health care network” (Mittman, Cawley, and Fenn, n.
d. ).
