Physician Assistant's Role in Health Care

Physician assistants are educated in basic medical sciences and clinical disciplines, including human anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pharmacotherapeutics and clinical laboratory medicine. PA education includes training in patient assessment, including interviewing, history-taking, and physical examination, presentation and documentation of clinical findings, differential diagnoses, development and implementation of treatment and medical management plans. Additionally, PA students are trained in the cognitive skills required for effective medical decision-making, including the ability to conduct a medical literature search, interpret relevant research findings, and incorporate these findings into clinical practice. Physician assistants are trained in the areas of family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, women’s health, general surgery, psychiatry, health maintenance, long-term care, and emergency medicine.

PA’s are also trained in a range of social and behavioral sciences required for competent clinical practice, including but not limited to medical care organization, human development, patient education, cross-cultural competency, death and dying, sexuality, medical care administration, research methods, medical ethics, and the PA profession. PA’s require a breadth of skills in clinical and psychosocial competencies in order to function effectively as mid-level providers in today’s complex and changing medical care environments.

Services performed by PA’s include but are not limited to the following:

• eliciting detailed and accurate patient histories;
• performing physical examinations and making diagnoses;
• ordering and interpreting laboratory and other diagnostic studies;
• recording and presenting pertinent clinical data;
• transmitting prescriptions;
• ordering and performing therapeutic procedures;
• recognizing and evaluating emergency situations, and instituting life-saving procedures when the physician is not at the scene;
• instructing and counseling patients regarding their physical and mental health;
• assisting the physician in the hospital and extended care facilities by arranging admissions, making rounds, ordering diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, recording progress notes, and serving as surgical assistant;
• referring patients to health care and social service facilities, agencies and resources in the community
• working as a member of interdisciplinary health care teams

PA’s may practice in all 50 states. However, laws and regulations governing PA practice vary from state to state. In California these medical services are specified and regulated by the Physician Assistant Committee, which is governed by the Medical Board of California.

Adapted from Standards and Guidelines for an Accredited Educational Program for the Physician Assistant, Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant and additional published information on the PA profession from the American Academy of Physician Assistants.