Family Physician Assistant

The Increasing Role of Family Medicine Physician Assistants in Health Care Physician assistants (PAs) are professionals that practice medicine under the supervision of a physician. The profession was created in the 1960s because it was noticed that there was a shortage of physicians practicing in primary care. To solve the issue of the shortage of physicians, Eugene A. Sted Jr., MD of Duke University gathered four men who had medical training in the military and created the first class of PAs in 1965. This first physician assistant class graduated from Duke University on October 6th, 1967, and the profession had great support from the medical community and the federal government, claiming the PA profession was a “creative solution to physician

These numbers imply that the physician assistant job outlook is expected to increase by 30 percent between these years; this rate is much higher compared to other professions. The reason there is such an expected increase in employment in the PA profession is because there is such an increase in demand of health care providers due to increases in number of chronic diseases as well as individuals becoming old of age.10 Also, the rate of physicians is declining, so it is expected that physician assistants will begin to take on the role of a primary health care provider for patients and their

Working as a physician assistant allows great flexibility in which they can switch between specialties throughout the duration of their career. Being that family medicine has been identified as the most popular specialty within the PA profession, many graduates completing a physician assistant program will pursue a career in this specialty. The family medicine specialty is particularly favored among physician assistants because it allows them to treat patients throughout their whole life and even allows the PA to see patients dealing with many different issues instead of focusing on just one area of medicine; this can be described as a more all inclusive specialty. Physician assistant program lengths typically only last 27 months and the potential to earn a salary of approximately over $100,000 a year makes this specialty favorable as well. With there being a decline in the number of physicians, the physician assistant profession is expected to increase dramatically over the years. Therefore, physician assistants will become more important to the United States health care system to continue to provide health care services and even serve a role as a primary care