Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Doctors were burning out. Moving to part-time has helped many avoid burn out. They might not stay part-time their entire career, but do it when they have young children at home and also as they near retirement. Many doctors choose to go part-time as they near retirement, rather than go cold turkey.
This link says male doctors are increasingly choosing to go part-time at a very rapid rate.
My local ER uses NP’s and physicians assistants instead of doctors for fast track. It seems to be efficient as they get people treated fairly quickly.
Efficiency here refers to the resource management level.
If there is a shortfall of care from full time physicians, requiring healthcare providers to retrain more nurses to do the things a physican can do (albeit without the full knowledge base and practical skills of a doctor) that is a good example of an inefficiency.
So, if there aren't enough physicians working full time, the solution is to divert more resources into (re)training nurses or other staff to work as de facto physicians? That's an even more inefficient return on investment than before.
There is a place for nursing practitioners, one could argue in some areas they are underutilized.
However, they aren't the solution to stem a shortfall in the number of full time working physicians. If they were, then there wouldn't be so much alarm over the situation with the NHS, for example, which has had no problem in implementing nursing practitioners.
The history of Physician Assistants in the US goes back 50 years and began with the US military. Physician Assistants can and do choose a specialty.
In the US more than 60% of PAs are women.
UK only recently began training PAs and it is very limited.
Efficiency here refers to the resource management level.
If there is a shortfall of care from full time physicians, requiring healthcare providers to retrain more nurses to do the things a physican can do (albeit without the full knowledge base and practical skills of a doctor) that is a good example of an inefficiency.
I’m saying that they help the hospital run efficiently, I wasn’t commenting as to if their retraining is efficient or not.
I don't see the big deal. Most things can be cured and or fixed by a nurse and or a physician's assistant. Only time a doctor is necessary is when a condition requires a specialist.
This.
We should be pumping out masters level people to handle ear aches and the flu by the thousands. This would actually help the cost of medical in the US.
The history of Physician Assistants in the US goes back 50 years and began with the US military. Physician Assistants can and do choose a specialty.
In the US more than 60% of PAs are women.
UK only recently began training PAs and it is very limited.
Their utility to healthcare trusts is largely interchangeable, so this argument doesn't really work.
If anything, it would probably be more efficient to retrain more nurses rather than recruit more physician assistants, given that nurses already have a working knowledge of hospital or practice protocols and rudimentary theoretical knowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tigerlily87
I’m saying that they help the hospital run efficiently, I wasn’t commenting as to if their retraining is efficient or not.
The topic is about resource efficiency rather than whether or not physician associates do their job efficiently.
As far as I'm aware no-one disputes the fact that they make valuable contributions to a MDT.
Their utility to healthcare trusts is largely interchangeable, so this argument doesn't really work.
If anything, it would probably be more efficient to retrain more nurses rather than recruit more physician assistants, given that nurses already have a working knowledge of hospital or practice protocols and rudimentary theoretical knowledge.
The topic is about resource efficiency rather than whether or not physician associates do their job efficiently.
As far as I'm aware no-one disputes the fact that they make valuable contributions to a MDT.
Efficiency involves appropriate delegation of lower value tasks.
Most PAs have strong pre-med undergraduate accomplishments. Competition for PA education is higher Education require to of a PA are multiples of a NP as are continuing education requirements.
PA Specialties tend to mirror MD specialties.
Efficiency involves appropriate delegation of lower value tasks.
Most PAs have strong pre-med undergraduate accomplishments. Competition for PA education is higher Education require to of a PA are multiples of a NP as are continuing education requirements.
PA Specialties tend to mirror MD specialties.
As we've gone over before, this isn't really relevant to the problem of inefficiency.
If you correct for a decrease in the level of care provided by doctors by recruiting more physician assistants, at the end of the day, you are spending more time and resources than you did before to maintain the same level of healthcare.
Physician assistants typically receive good training and vetting, but this is no substitute for the level of training and knowledge invested in fully-qualified doctors. This means there are limits to which they can substitute for reduced physician work hours.
Last edited by Hightower72; 03-06-2018 at 09:36 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
