Physician’s Assistant Day

What the day is

Physician Assistant Day is observed on October 6. The date marks the graduation of the first physician assistant class from Duke University in 1967.

The profession is usually written today as physician assistant, without the possessive, and many in the field now prefer physician associate, reflecting a working relationship rather than an assisting one.

Origin and background

The profession was created to solve a specific mid-1960s problem: a shortage of primary care doctors, particularly in rural areas, at the same moment that large numbers of highly trained military corpsmen were returning from service with substantial clinical experience and no civilian qualification that recognized it.

Eugene Stead at Duke Medical Center designed a program to convert that experience into a formal credential, compressing a medical-model curriculum into roughly two years. The first cohort were Navy corpsmen. The model worked, spread quickly, and the profession now numbers well over a hundred thousand in the United States.

What a PA actually does is broader than the name suggests. PAs take histories, examine patients, order and interpret tests, diagnose, prescribe in every US state, assist in surgery and manage ongoing care. They are trained in the medical model rather than the nursing model, which distinguishes them from nurse practitioners, a separate profession that arrived at a similar role from a different direction.

The scope-of-practice argument continues, with physician organizations generally favoring closer supervision and PA organizations favoring greater autonomy, particularly where physician coverage is thin.

How to take part

• Thank the PA who actually treats you. Many patients assume they have seen a doctor and never learn otherwise.
• Learn the difference between a PA, a nurse practitioner and a doctor, since all three may appear in the same clinic.
• If you are considering the field, ask a working PA about the hours and the autonomy rather than reading brochures.
• Note the history: this profession exists because someone found a way to use skills the civilian system was wasting.