Doctors In Training. What Is A Physician's Assistant And What Do They Do?

PA is an acronym for a number of different things. Some of these things include the American state of Pennsylvania, personal attorney, prosecuting attorney, public accountant, and of course physician's assistant. A physician's assistant is the closest thing to a doctor that exists. The only reason that they came to be was because of a shortage of doctors in the 1960s and there were a decent amount of people with medical training in Vietnam. This led to the profession of being a physician's assistant.


    To this day they can do pretty much everything a doctor does including diagnosing conditions and infirmities, treating them, and writing prescriptions. They are even allowed to partake in surgeries and counsel patients with medical advice. They are not real doctors but they make it pretty close to being real doctors. The education is almost like a doctor's yet it is shorter and only for licensing and certification as a PA. Most of their work is done alongside their education in what is like an internship. After all, a physician's assistant is called that because they work in assisting physicians. They must work alongside doctors and most times do not have their own practice or office that is not under the supervision of an official doctor.

    In the end, most of these PA's end up furthering their education and actually become doctors while some of them prefer to remain a physician's assistant. A physician has to do practices and residencies while a PA does not have to do any of that. They are all over many different kinds of medical practices and specialties in healthcare. Though a physician's assistant has responsibility over patients, it is shared and not as important as that of an actual physician. A physician holds not only responsibility over the patient but the PA too to ensure that everything goes as planned and with a good outcome.

Read also what is the best colleges in New York to become Physician's assistant and primary purpose of CME courses for Physician's assistant on our previous articles.