10 Reasons to See a Physician Assistant

'Assistant' with a capital 'A'

If you haven't already received medical care from a physician assistant, chances are that someday you will. More and more, PAs are becoming familiar players on the health care team. Don't be thrown by the "assistant" in their title. Physician assistants undergo intensive medical training and provide many of the same services as doctors. Here's a quick look at the PA profession, and a sample of what they have to offer.

What a PA can do for you

A PA is "a licensed medical professional who can examine, test, treat and prescribe medication for patients," says Debra Herrmann, an assistant professor of physician assistant studies at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at George Washington University. "Like physicians, the exact duties of the PA depend on the type of medical setting in which they work and their level of experience, specialty and the state laws where they practice."

Here's a partial list of what PAs can do: obtain patient medical histories, conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat illness, order and interpret tests, develop treatment plans, counsel on preventative health care, assist in surgery and write prescriptions.

Look out for your lungs

Physician assistant Gabriel Ortiz practices at Pediatric Pulmonary Services in El Paso, Texas, where young patients come in with shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing. "They could have nasal congestion, itchy watery eyes, runny nose -- all the common allergy-type symptoms," says Ortiz, who has worked in allergy, asthma and immunology for 25 years. His goal is to sort out what's causing the problem and prevent it from turning into serious respiratory difficulties. The first step is using skin or blood tests to identify allergy triggers, such as cats, dogs, grasses, weeds or trees. Then, Ortiz performs pulmonary function tests to rule out asthma. He's trained to treat any problem that can arise during immunotherapy, like an anaphylactic reaction -- a life-threatening emergency.

Double the expertise

Unlike nurse practitioners, who can practice independently in some states, physician assistants are required to work with a supervising physician. "We're considered dependent practitioners," Herrmann says. "So if I'm ever seeing a patient and I'm not clear what to do, or it's a complicated case, I always have my physician who I consult." Yet PAs can be quite autonomous, and supervision can come from a distance. If you live in a rural area, your PA might be the only primary care provider for miles around. In that case, the PA will pick up the phone to collaborate with the supervising physician. "We really work as a team," Herrmann says. "So it's almost like putting two heads together."

Offer medical know-how

Physician assistants follow a similar path as doctors in their medical training, but shorter. Ortiz says that as undergraduates, students have much the same premed requirements, and then during PA training, take similar academic courses -- but in one year compared to the medical students' two. "When the medical students were doing OB-GYN and delivering the babies, I was doing the same thing as a PA student," he says of his own clinical training. "When they were doing the cardiovascular surgery, the open-heart surgery, we were too. When they were doing brain surgery, orthopedic surgery, all of that -- there would be a group of 20 medical students and one PA student." While PA graduate-level programs take about two years to complete, medical school takes roughly four years, followed by a residency. Herrmann points out that many PA students have prior health care experience -- for instance, as paramedics or in the military.

Evaluate brain trauma

Saira Malik is one of several neurosurgical PAs at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where she performs neurological consults on patients coming in through the trauma bay. "You may have a gunshot wound to the head," she says, or a brain hemorrhage from trauma, or a spontaneous hemorrhage from high blood pressure or an aneurysm. "We're the first ones to see the patients." The PAs examine the patient, view and interpret images, and notify the surgeons. If a patient needs surgery, she says, PAs can go the operating room with him or her and provide assistance. Once the patient is admitted to the intensive care unit or elsewhere in the hospital, she follows up on them daily. If a central line is needed, it's likely Malik inserting it at bedside.

Provide specialized care

"You name me a medical specialty, and I'll tell you a PA who's in it," says John McGinnity, president of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. Flexibility is a key attribute of the physician assistant, he says. PAs are trained and nationally certified as generalists, and with quickly changing medical advancements, they're continually updating their education and skills to provide safe, quality care. He says PAs are a boon to the health care workforce, not only in underserved rural areas, but in urban and suburban hospitals and everywhere else in between. "We can't train enough PAs for the job market," says McGinnity, director of the PA program at Wayne State University in Detroit. "The demand is high; the job market is good -- because it's cost-effective care."

Increase health care access

The roots of the PA profession go back to the Vietnam War era, when the return of medically trained and skilled Navy corpsmen coincided with a U.S. shortage of primary care physicians in the mid-1960s, especially in rural areas, Herrmann says. Four corpsmen made up the 1967 graduating class of the original PA program at Duke University. Today, the number of PAs nationwide is "exploding" at nearly 100,000, says Charlene Morris, president of the North Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants.

Treat you anywhere

Struck by lightning? If you've ever survived a major mishap while camping at Acadia National Park, near Bar Harbor, Maine, you might have encountered PA Gerry Keenan, past associate medical adviser to the park's law enforcement and search and rescue group. Or you might have come across him in the local emergency room, where PAs provide full-time coverage. Now an associate professor at Arizona School of Health Sciences at A.T. Still University, Keenan notes that as part of the White House medical team, PAs takes care of the president and vice president of the United States.

Take time to talk

"You can see a PA for anything -- any health concern -- and that is the uniqueness of the PA," Keenan says. "They'll do a very comprehensive history, a thorough physical examination and they've been trained to develop a differential diagnosis and can provide treatment." Malik says patients will find "that PAs sit and talk with you much more than a physician would and ask you a lot of questions ... where physicians have to see 20-plus patients [and] they don't have a lot of time." And Herrmann says one reason people are attracted to the PA profession is "you usually have the luxury of spending more time with the patient."

Provide endless enthusiasm

Do you think your job is "marvelous?" Charlene Morris does, and she's been a physician assistant for 35 years. Currently practicing as a PA at Pamlico Medical Center in rural Bayboro, North Carolina, she calls the state "PA heaven." She fulfills a range of roles -- from providing well-woman care to working with diabetic patients to lower their blood sugar -- and one of her "special loves" is palliative and hospice care. She looks out for entire families, talking to them about life stressors as well as medical concerns, and does home visits as well as nursing home rounds. "I'm an integral part of the community," Morris says. "It's just perfect for me. It's where I belong."

Lisa Esposito is a Patient Advice reporter at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at lesposito@usnews.com.