Scary! I do my best to try to avoid being seen/treated by a PA.

I half to say the ones in my clinic are all very well trained, and I would trust any of them. Could be because they are well supervised by the drs we have.

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There is also another "career" that is becoming more popular and that is anesthesiologist assistant, or AA. Like PAs, you can have an undergrad degree in ANYTHING and then a two year Master's degree in anesthesia. Whereas a nurse anesthetist has a bachelor's degree in nursing and critical care experience before they attend what is now a PhD degree in anesthesia. My program, 27 years ago, was a Master's program. Anesthesiologists created this "specialty" because they can completely control what an AA does. Nurse anesthetists can bill for their own services and work unsupervised, which is what I do. An AA cannot work independently. So you could have someone watching over you while you have surgery that has an art history degree with an anesthesia Master's. Of course, the anesthesiologist is supposed to be available if a problem arises, but it is recognizing that a problem could be occurring that is worrisome.

Sleeperblues, I'll pass "worrisome" and go straight to "scary." I wonder what's next . . . Neurosurgeon Assistant?

Ha ha, Alisande, probably!

There are many things where the training is obtained beyond or without receiving a bachelors degree. Most doctors do not bother with getting a pre-med doctors bachelors, if there is such a thing. Some doctors have degrees in many other things then decide to take the training to become doctors. The training for a PA from what I have read tonight is not college courses but in post education training. Has anyone read of a college that has a bachelors degree for PA's?

In a rural community, it's a common practice because so many doctors want the bigger, fancier, wealthier lifestyle of the big city. I always ask who I'm to see. I'd rather wait an extra month to see an MD. I've been known to travel 50 miles if I need an immediate appointment, rather than see a PA.

I won't bore you with details, but what was "diagnosed" as keratosis was actually skin cancer. Fortunately for me, I'm not so trusting and demanded to see the doctor. It was a tough go, and I still have problems, but had I relaxed and gone with the treatment of the PA.................well, I'd be horribly disfigured at best.

The reason it is so female centric is because it is a 9 - 5 job. She can have a family and a career, rather than working on a time clock and being at the mercy of deadlines.

Physicians assistants are like paralegals, or paraprofessionals in other endeavors, to leverage the professional's time. There may be things they can handle fine but as in other areas, I'll never know because "No thanks, I'll wait for the MD (the person on the top of the pyramid) that I came to see".

"Most doctors do not bother with getting a pre-med doctors bachelors, if there is such a thing. Some doctors have degrees in many other things then decide to take the training to become doctors."

It's not really as you have described.

The prerequisite courses for most medical schools are mostly the same from one to the next, with a few differences. The basic sciences: physical and organic chemistry, physics, and biology plus calc and statistics, sometimes English comp. and genetics and maybe a psych class or two. Beyond that, applicants can complete whatever major they want. Many medical schools consider non-core science majors a plus - whether philosophy, history, music, art, engineering, or whatever because getting away from science majors can provide a broader educational experience. So called "pre-med" is a term to suggest a person's career intention but it's rarely a major for which a bachelors degree is granted. A bachelors degree, with a very very few and limited exceptions, is required for entry to medical school but what it's in isn't important.

Unless someone is brilliant enough to get top grades no matter what their career destination, most students who decide to shoot for med school decide to go that route very early in their college careers, in their first or second year. Otherwise, there isn't enough time to complete a major and the prerequisite classes in enough time to apply. Applicants typically take the admission test (MCAT) in their junior year and submit their apps in the summer between their junior and senior undergrad years.

I guess I am very lucky that the hospital ( who owns the clinics) have picked good male and female PAs. I have worked around most of them and all of them are well liked. Oh I must also say that they have PAs that work with surgeons. The only ones we have are the ortho ones. But there are neur. PAs not in my area, but for that kind of doc a trip to Seattle would be in order.

Elmer I used to know one school that offered a pre-med bachelors degree. Many offer pre-med courses but my comment was PRE-MED BACHELOR DEGREES.

Paralegals are required to work under the supervision of an attorney. They do a lot of the time consuming tedious tasks and as a sole practitioner, it would have been nice to have one working for me when I was in California, at least during ‘divorce season’ (the number of people looking to start divorce proceedings goes into overdrive in the first couple months of the year, but the work is steady the other ten months).

We have more Nurse Practitioners here than PAs, at least from what I’ve seen and what my parents have said (they go to the doctor more and have been living here since 2007).

There are no more "pre-med" degrees. However, someone who is interested in med school will take all of the science classes to prepare them for the MCAT. There are excellent PAs out there, just like there are not so excellent ones. It's the same in every profession. Believe it or not, there are even people with MD behind their name who are not excellent, not even middling. If I had it to do over again would I have become an anesthesiologist? Without a doubt. Not because I don't love my profession or my job, but because of the public perception of being a "nurse". My patients call me Dr. all the time, call me their anesthesiologist, despite me telling them I am a Nurse anesthetist. They just can't conceive of a nurse doing what I do.

Interesting story-my son's friend was graduating from high school and we were talking about his path in life. He told me he wanted to become a physician assistant. I questioned him, said if you are smart enough to be a PA then you are smart enough to be a physician. Long story short, he is now just finishing his first year of neurosurgery residency at THE Mayo clinic, after having done his undergrad at Minnesota and med school at Wisconsin. I'm so proud of him, and I take a little ownership in his decision.

I used to be a physician (changed career to stay at home mom and house renovator). The PA students trained right next to the med students for the clinical part of school. I don't think their classes were as tough as ours as they were in a separate building.

I think it is a great career if you want to be in healthcare without the huge time commitment and loan commitment. And just like anything else, there are good ones and bad ones. There were some people in my medical school class that were banned from patient contact at various times. Oh, the stories I have...(And they graduated).

I encouraged my daughter to go to a 5 year combined PA school but she was all set to go to med school until her second year of college when she fell in love with eastern European history. Now its all foreign service school in the future.

And yes like sleeper blues says...there are no premed degrees. Pre-med students need a certain number of biology, chemistry, calculus and other science classes so that premed degree would include them all as part of the degree. My BA in Biology covered every required pre-requisite for medical school already in the degree requirements as well. However, you can get your degree in whatever you want and take the pre-requisites as extra classes. When I was applying to medical school, a lot of pre med students were anthropology majors. They did that to have a high GPA for the application.

Well, the good part about PAs is I've found them easier to manipulate than doctors to get what I know I need...

My great nephew is currently enrolled in a two year nursing college and then plans on four more years of schooling for the PA.

I saw a rhematologist PA and he was very good in that he immediately referred me to a specialist in orthopedic oncology who was able to get to the bottom of a condition that had been plaguing me for three years. Unlike the actual doctors who saw me.

A very useful thread. I recall of only one PA that I saw at a little clinic I visited for colds, vaccines, and the like. This man seemed very professional and competent. He said he was a Dr in Colombia but couldn’t/wouldn’t get a license here. I hope it wasn’t b/c he was run out of his country for malpractice. I’ll never know, he’s now retired.

are you all saying it is my right to ask to see a Dr if person that comes in room is a PA? I already mentioned in the Anglo thread my concern for the pseudo pros attending 15 min. Education centers.

Of course it's your right

very intersting discussion, following

bossy although it may have changed the PA you mentioned may have been older when he came to this country. After a certain age it is next to impossible to find an opening as a intern-resident that needed to be completed in this country before you can become a doctor. A doctor I had from another country talked about this difficulty. He had been very lucky to obtain through a friend a post.

lynn wheeler...residencies are actually required in everything unless you are working for cash clinics, moonlighting at hospitals, or medical spas or things like that. I know this because I did not finish my residency (2 pregnancies in a row without family nearby) and I cannot work as a physician even though I am licensed. If you are more than 5 years out from graduation, it is impossible to get back into most programs. For example, there are some openings in Pathology in undesirable programs that apparently take anybody "with a heartbeat".

You CAN work as a physician if you are "board eligible" which means you completed your residency but did not pass the medical boards.

As far as the foreign MDs that cannot get licensed here...most of the foreign MDs I worked with in my residency program were better than US trained students. They had a much larger breadth of knowledge and relied less on technology for diagnosis.

My guy was really good. I shall miss him.

Thank you for your input, Cleo. Residency is where the real learning is done.

"As far as the foreign MDs that cannot get licensed here...most of the foreign MDs I worked with in my residency program were better than US trained students. They had a much larger breadth of knowledge and relied less on technology for diagnosis."

Completing a US residency opens the door to US immigration for foreign medical school grads. But obtaining a residency is a competitive process, where high scores on the standardized tests makes it more likely an applicant will be successful in the match process to get a residency. If you assume (as I do) that the population in any country should have the same percentage of very bright students with academic potential as any other, a top graduate from (fill in the blank name of country) is as capable of studying for and attaining high board scores as someone from the US or any other country. They're just at a slight disadvantage because many programs limit or prefer not to choose such applicants.

So for cleo, a foreign med school grad in a US residency is likely a very bright and very top percentile high performing student, when other residents of US origin, while still very capable, represent the full range of the bell curve of their medical schools and the profession in general.

I went to a Physician's Assistant a couple of months ago, because I couldn't get an appt to see the doctor. It was a pre-screening for an endoscopy/colonoscopy that I needed, so I wasn't too concerned that I wasn't seeing a physician. When I looked on the internet, it seems that PA's have less training than Nurse Practitioners. Is this correct? Is it better to see a Nurse Practitioner than a PA?

While the length of NP and PA programs is similar, a major difference is the prerequisite.
Admission to an NP program requires the candidate to already be an RN, with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, which gives the NP additional didactic and supervised clinical experience, compared to the PA.

Thus, a “new grad” NP is likely to have completed more health sciences coursework (combining undergrad & graduate level hours) and have more patient care experience.

Unfortunately, IMHO, diploma mill for-profit schools are contributing to a decline in the rigor of many educational programs. Just as you may ask where your MD went to med school/ residency, it is worth asking that question of NP's and PA's.

We use both in our dept; which is better? Program attended and the individual, factor more heavily than the NP or PA credential.