Physician assistant is a critical and in-demand role in the healthcare industry. These professionals provide preventative, diagnostic, and therapeutic services to patients in a variety of settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, community health centers, and other medical facilities.
As the U.S. population ages and the shortage of primary care physicians deepens, physician assistants help to ensure everyone has access to high-quality medical care. This is one reason physician assistant was ranked second on the U.S. News & World Reports list of best healthcare careers. As of 2022, there were roughly 159,000 physician assistants licensed in the United States, earning an average pay of $115,000 per year. The field is expected to grow by a rate of 31% over the next 7 years, as well, making this a career with a lot of growth opportunity for students interested in the healthcare industry. This strong job outlook makes it one of the top occupations, not just in healthcare but across the employment landscape, ranked #4 on the U.S. News Best 100 Jobs List for 2023.
What is a physician assistant?
Physician assistants are licensed professionals who are integral to the health care teams in institutions like hospitals and clinics. Like physicians, they can practice in a variety of specialties, from clinical research to ordering and interpreting tests to diagnose illnesses, prescribing medications, and developing treatment plans. The main goal of the profession is to expand access to healthcare by offering patient-centered medical services to supplement the efforts of doctors and nurses in healthcare institutions.
History of the physician assistant role
The role of physician assistant was created in the 1960s in response to address the shortage of primary care physicians at the time. The first PA program was established at Duke University in 1965, with a class made up of former Navy Hospital Corpsmen. In 1968, the American Academy of Physician Associates was established to oversee the profession, which was officially recognized by six states in 1971. Two years later, the National Board of Medical Examiners administered the first certifying exam for PAs, fully establishing them as licensed members of the medical profession.
What does a physician assistant do?
In short, PAs provide patient care, often in collaboration with physicians and nurses. While the specific tasks they handle on a day-to-day basis depend on their specialty and the facility where they work, they can provide nearly all the same services as a physician. Most of these can be provided with a high degree of autonomy, without needing supervision from a doctor.
One of the problems with defining the role of a physician assistant clearly is that this field was designed to be adaptable. PAs fill in the gaps in both primary care and specialty healthcare institutions, supplementing the efforts of other medical professionals to expand healthcare access to more people. In some cases, this means working in underserved communities, particularly rural areas with limited healthcare facilities.
The specialty a PA focuses on will also affect their role in the workplace and the day-to-day responsibilities that come with it. The most common specialties are surgical, primary care, family medicine, and internal medicine. Other PAs specialize in fields like emergency medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), or other aspects of the broader medical profession.
Typical responsibilities of a physician assistant
The scope of a physician assistant’s duties can vary widely. In general, though, they provide similar services to a primary care physician. This may include making rounds in hospitals or nursing home facilities, assisting with surgery, counseling patients about preventative care, providing emergency medicine and treatment procedures, ordering diagnostic tests, conducting physical exams, or developing treatment plans, including prescribing medication.
Sample physician assistant job description
Riverside General Hospital is currently recruiting for a Physician Assistant to join our medical team. This role reports to the Primary Supervising Physician and works within a dynamic, collaborative care team. The primary responsibility of the PA is to provide comprehensive patient assessment, make differential diagnoses, order appropriate tests, and plan the clinical management of patients.
The PA also provides leadership and actively participates in this program’s development and evaluation, as well as interdisciplinary collaboration in providing patient care. If you are passionate, self-motivated, and committed to setting new standards of excellence, this role is an ideal fit for you.
Responsibilities and duties
- Provide direct clinical care to patients in consultation with other healthcare professionals as indicated
- Recommend diagnostic tests and treatment
- Perform specialized and technical procedures, including assisting in the operating room
- Instruct and educate patients and family members, and confer with them to address follow-up care concerns
- Document all aspects of patient care and assist with completion of all required documentation
- Provide and document clinical instructions
- Assist in clinical instruction and supervision of medical health students
- Collaborate with community physicians, community organizations, and other healthcare providers to facilitate ongoing patient care management and maintain continuity of care
Qualifications
- Master’s degree from an accredited physician assistant education program
- Physician Assistant – Certified (PA-C)
- State license to practice medicine
- Clinical training experience
- Knowledge of diagnostic equipment and procedures
- Ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment
- Detail oriented with excellent problem solving skills
- Strong analytical skills
- Excellent team work, communication, and interpersonal skills
Work environment for physician assistants
Physician assistants work in every state across the country, in a range of settings and specialty areas, so there’s no one definitive work environment. The 2022 AAPA Salary Survey shows that roughly half of PAs work in outpatient clinics and offices, with 37.5% employed in hospitals and the remainder working in urgent care centers and other facilities. PAs may also work for government agencies, including correctional institutions, military installations, and the Department of Veteran Affairs.
Regardless of the type of facility where they work, physician assistants typically spend the majority of their time engaging directly with patients. This can mean a lot of time spent on their feet, making rounds to patient rooms or assisting with surgical procedures and other treatments. They may also be responsible for administrative tasks like updating patient records and histories or handling patient communication and scheduling.
The work hours of a PA also depends on the setting where they work. In a 24-hour healthcare facility like a hospital, they may be expected to work nights, weekends, or holidays, and many are required to be on call occasionally in addition to their regularly scheduled shifts. Conversely, those who work under surgeons or in private practices may have a more consistent and traditional work schedule. One thing PAs can count on, though, is that they tend to work at least a full 40-hour week.
How to become a physician assistant
There are a number of requirements that employers look for when they’re considering which physician assistant candidates to add to their team. First and foremost, they need to be fully licensed and PA-C certified. This certification verifies that applicants have received the training and information provided during completion of a physician assistant program and are qualified to treat and counsel patients.
While many physician assistants train specifically for these roles, others pursue PA programs after gaining experience elsewhere on the healthcare staff. For example, physical therapists or paramedics may pursue PA studies and certifications as a way to progress into a higher paying area of the industry. Some PA Master’s Degree programs require hands-on patient care experience in order to enroll. However, this is not always a prerequisite, since clinical rotations are part of the curriculum in physician assistant programs.
Key soft skills for PAs
Communication and interpersonal skills
PAs often interact directly with patients. This often includes patient education as well as treatment of illness, disease, and injuries. In addition, they work closely with other medical providers like nurses, clinicians, and physicians, as well as the insurance companies that pay for patient services. All of this means PAs need the ability to communicate effectively with all types of people.
Compassion and empathy
One common use for PAs is to expand care in underserved areas. This can mean seeing patients who rarely receive medical care and may be anxious or self-conscious as a result. PAs also interact with patient families, particularly those who take opportunities in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Strong compassion and empathy help PAs build a more effective relationship with all of these individuals, which in turn allows them to provide better care.
Staying calm under pressure
One of the reasons healthcare in general can be a stressful career is that it truly can be a matter of life and death. While PAs do work under a supervising physician, they’re often independent and autonomous on a day-to-day level. This means PAs often have to make quick decisions about patient treatment, particularly those who work in emergency rooms and similar settings.
Education, certification, and licensing
Physician assistant education starts with getting a Bachelor’s degree, normally a field of study in the sciences. Some universities offer pre-PA degree programs. Others start with a Bachelor’s of Science in fields such as anatomy, kinesiology, pharmacology, or nursing, or in a related non-medical field like ethics or biology.
After graduation from an undergraduate school, students have the prerequisites they need to enroll in a PA Master’s degree. There are around 300 of these programs across the United States. As was mentioned above, some (though not all) also expect some hands-on experience in healthcare prior to enrolling. The typical PA-C program takes 2-3 academic years to complete, and has a curriculum similar to medical school. This starts with classroom courses on subjects in both medical and behavioral sciences, as well as ethics and healthcare best practices. Armed with these competencies, students then enter the clinical phase, completing 2,000+ hours of rotations in areas like general surgery, family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, emergency medicine, pediatrics, and OB/GYN.
The last step to obtaining an official PA-C credential is to pass the national certifying examination, known as the PANCE (Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam). Once certified, PAs then need to obtain a license from their state medical board in order to legally practice.
FAQs
What is the relationship between a physician assistant and a physician?
Physician assistants typically work under a supervising physician, but that doesn’t mean they’re always working side by side. Often, PAs have their own patients and have a written agreement with their physician about which clinical decisions and services they can provide unsupervised. This agreement requirement dates back to the early days of the profession when it was still untested, and is becoming obsolete. The AAPA’s 2017 Optimal Team Practice policy removes this administrative requirement, creating a more collaborative relationship between PAs and physicians in the healthcare facilities that have implemented it.
What are the differences between physician assistants and nurse practitioners or registered nurses?
On a day-to-day level, these roles look very similar. The main difference is in the training and education these professionals receive. PAs get an education in general medicine and are trained to practice medicine, in a similar way to how doctors and physicians are educated. Nurse practitioners are required to choose a focus of specialty, and are trained to practice nursing, a complementary but distinct skill set from what is taught in a medical school.
What kind of continuing training or education do PAs need?
To maintain their certification and license, PAs have to earn 100 continuing medical education (CME) credits every two years, including at least 50 Category 1 credits. These consist of skills and knowledge that are generally recognized as within the discipline of clinical medicine, which have been approved by a sponsoring organization in the United States or Canada. In addition, PAs have to pass a recertification exam every 10 years. As of 2023, there are two recertification exam options: the Physician Assistant National Recertifying Exam (PANRE) or the PANRE-LA (Longitudinal Assessment).
Where can I learn more about physician assistant careers and education?
There are three main organizations for PAs: the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), the Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA), and the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA).