To the Editor:
The Professional Practice Council (PPC) of the AAPA reviewed the recent paper entitled “Patient willingness to be seen by physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and residents in the emergency department: does the presumption of assent have an empirical basis?”1 described in Research Corner in the January 2011 issue of JAAPA. The paper, authored by a physician and a PA, concludes that patients overwhelmingly prefer to see an attending physician instead of any other health care provider. These data provide the opportunity to have an important and poignant discussion.
Many PAs are comfortable in their practice settings and fail to look beyond their exam rooms to see how patients in the general population view the profession. The paper by Larkin and Hooker suggests that patients do not yet understand that they can and should expect the same level of care from both a PA and his or her supervising/attending physician. The physician-PA team, by design, functions to provide complete, competent, and cost-effective care.
The AAPA will continue to work for a future where patients are comforted by the opportunity to see a PA. The PPC urges individual PAs to take every opportunity to educate the public about the profession during individual patient encounters and as visible members of community groups working toward better health care for all Americans.
The PPC contends that the job of educating the public will be adequate when patients understand that seeing a PA optimizes their care, not compromises it.
The Professional Practice Council of the AAPA: Daniel O'Donoghue, PhD, PA-C; Jim Anderson, PA-C; Robert L. Hollingsworth, DHSc, PA-C; Paul Hager, PA-C; Ellen Rathfon, AAPA staff; Pamela K. Donohue, ScD, PA-C
REFERENCE
1. Larkin, GL, RS Hooker. Patient willingness to be seen by physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and residents in the emergency department: does the presumption of assent have an empirical basis? Am J Bioeth. 2010;10(8):1-10.