Physician Assistant Case Study

The role of the physician assistant has evolved since the profession began in the 1960s. Today, physician assistants are prevalent in health care due to provider shortages and patient demands. While patients still prefer to see a physician, more exposure and treatment by physician assistants has increased the receptiveness from patients toward the physician assistant profession. The decreased number of physician providers has allowed for physician assistants to expanding their role as a provider. Unlike nurse practitioners, physician assistants have not yet expanded into practice without an overseeing physician. An early physician assistant’s knowledge and skill set greatly varies from a physicians, due to the physician’s extensive education

If state laws and licensure approved independent practice, physician assistant’s range of practice would be limited based on the PAs skills and knowledge. If physician assistants were permitted to practice independently, would the independence overshadow the actual care given; meaning how many patients would the PA actually be able to see and treat without referring to a higher level of care? This will ultimately determine if PAs practicing independently will be helpful to satisfying the healthcare demand. No study was found to further determine the productivity of the PA practicing

The design behind a PA was to quickly fill the patient demand and provider needs in health care by operating as a team, not to create individualized clinicians. Overall, patients express more satisfaction with a PA- physician team because the clinician is more available to the patient. More research needs to be conducted on the physician assistant practice to see if the PA practice would be productive and able of an independent practice, and if so how many years of extra experience or training that would require. As of now, I do believe that the collaborative team of the two clinicians is a safe and effective method to our current healthcare demand. Ultimately, it is not about whether a PA can or cannot practice independent of a supervising physician, it is about the patient. The studies show that patient treatment and satisfaction increase when exposed to the collective care of the physician and PA team. Therefore, physician assistants should remain in a collaborative practice to better focus and treat