Physicians Assistant's

Nurses General Nursing

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We don't have Physicians Assistant's (PA's) inthe UK yet but there are plans to bring them into the work force. i am happy that such a good idea has been implemented in the US but arent you gguys annoyed that they get paid more than the Nurses, just because they are working more closely with the Doctors. I hope upon hope that when they come to the UK, that they are either paid on parity with the Nursing Staff or less. i certainly dont think that they should be paid more. even if they do prescribe in the US which i dont think they should. i am a modern thinker, but to me it should be Doctors and Nurses.

:( :) :confused:

Physian's Assistants were a creation of the AMA in the 1960's, when Military Corpsmen began coming home after the Vietnam War, wanting to continue on in their medical roles. It was a way for men to go into nursing without having to be called nurses.

Brief timeline:

1961 Dr. Charles Hudson, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, calls for a "mid-level" provider from the ranks of former military corpsmen.

1962 Dr. Henry McIntosh, cardiologist at Duke University, trains local fireman in emergency procedures for the community; in exchange, off-duty firemen staff the cardiac catheterization laboratory; former Navy hospital corpsmen are hired for similar roles and are classified as physician's assistants by Duke's payroll department.

1964 Dr. Eugene Stead, Jr., disillusioned by organized nursing, decides that ex-military corpsmen with their previous training and experience would be suitable candidates for his two-year experimental program that he describes in a letter to one of his Duke colleagues, Dr. Charles H. Frenzel.

Dr. Richard A. Smith is assigned to Pacific Northwest by Surgeon General William Stewart to develop physician assistant training program. He develops the MEDEX (Med-icine Ex-tension) model with a strong emphasis on the deployment of students and graduates into medically underserved communities.

1965 Academic Committee chaired by Dr. Andrew Wallace approves Dr. Stead's proposed PA curriculum and the National Heart Institute funds Dr. Herbert Saltsman's grant to train hyperbaric chamber operators and physician's assistant. This clears the way for the first four physician assistant (PA) students, all ex-Navy hospital corpsmen, to begin training at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC.

Reader's Digest article about jobs in health care industry mentions the development of the PA program at Duke University causing a flood of inquires from ex-military corpsmen.

I loved the NP's i've seen in the last year or two, lots more...practiced in the art it seemed. I recently had an experience with a PA, and she was a nice gal, but she didn't seem to know her physiology very well, also she didn't seem to think that was a big deal despite having a biology degree.

The infancy of the PA program during the 60's and 70's was filled with many struggles. The first of which was the opposition from the nursing community. When the AMA announced this idea, they were answered with a harsh rebuttal.

1) neither the NLN nor the ANA had been consulted on the proposal;

2) in spite of the innovation in expanded use of health personnel, it is unreasonable to rob one profession already depleted to meet the needs of another;

3) interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration are necessary if common problems between medicine and nursing are to be solved.

Not all nurses agreed with these two national nurses' organizations. A month after the ANA's rebuttal, Dorothy Mereness, Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, spanned the breach with her mediating address to the Council of Baccalaureate and Higher Degree Programs in Nursing of the NLN in Kansas City, Missouri. Mereness argued that the professional nursing organization had not taken a position on the issue of nurses becoming PA's. She then concluded: In spite of the misgivings of their colleagues, many graduate nurses will most certainly be interested in relating themselves to a physician and accepting whatever extra training he may deem necessary... Holt a physician assistant historian, explained why the separation existed between the AMA and professional nursing organizations by saying:

The nursing profession was in the process of shaping a major transition in the image of the nurse that was necessary as the societal transformation that was improving the position and opportunities open to women in general. In addition, professional nursing organizations were struggling with their hatred of a history of authoritarian medicine, which the AMA's persistent disregard for the problems of the nursing profession exacerbated. Thus, while the extent on which the AMA misrepresented the physician assistant concept is evident in retrospect, at the ANA had little choice but to respond to the physician assistant by renouncing any desire for nurses to receive physician assistant training.

I almost went to PA school instead of nursing school but decided I want to be a nurse anesthetist instead. I don't think the future of the PA profession is as solid as the nursing profession. I know that I will always have a job as a nurse, and I will have my own license as opposed to working under someone else's license. I know some hospitals in my area will only hire NPs and not PAs. That being said, I have gone to both PAs and NPs for my own healthcare and I don't find much of a difference between the two.

Exactly i hope they never ever get properly introduced in the UK. We already have enough confusion in the roles between Doctors and Nurses, the last thing that we needin the UK is some other wierd new group to bridge a gap which doesn't exist.

The way Nurses are paid in the UK ain't great so if some other people come in and start getting paid more then i think our unions will throw a fit! It makes more sense to me to make Nursing more attractive and with better pay rather than kick it in the shins and take the easy way out. and as for it being a way for males to go into Nursing? i fail to believe that. Any man that can't say he's a Nurse becuase the term sounds girly must have some insecurities about his masculinity somewhere

NURSES RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:( ::roll

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