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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Even PAs are moving away from primary care?

An article that can be found here suggests that my prediction that not too far down the road primary care will be delivered mainly by "mid level" practitioners may not be on target. It seems that fewer PAs are opting for primary care mirroring a trend in med students to shun primary care. Low pay, shrinking prestige ,cost of education and low level of job satisfaction are factors said to push docs away from primary care and the same factors may have a similar effect on PAs .

Thanks to KevinMD for calling attention to the article referenced above.

Maybe "mid levels" will be replaced by something like PA assistants (PAAs) or NPAs ( nurse practitioner assistants). The third party payer spin doctors will need a better name than "lower levels" to refer to them, however.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Being a primary care doctor is not for the faint hearted. Its a gift from God for those who enjoy medicine and who are not necessarily out for the money. i will admit, i wish i could have been a specialist, but now that i am 57 years old, i am enjoying family practice more and more every year that passes.

james gaulte said...

I have nothing but admiration and respect for physicians like you.keep going.
James

ERMurse said...

I agree. Most Staff ED Nurses make as much or more than the PA's that work in local ED's. I suspect those working in less acute settings make much less.