Like many physician assistants, we continue to be amazed at just how many patients have never heard of PAs—or may have heard of us but misunderstand our role. Despite the growing exposure of patients to PAs, we still get asked, "But when will you become a doctor?" Because of this lack of knowledge, we all have a responsibility to promote and explain our profession, especially as PA Week approaches. We wanted to share some of our recent experiences establishing a PA organization at our health care facility, Lancaster General Health, and our plans for PA Week in the hope that it will encourage you to think about setting up a similar organization and to get involved in promoting the profession and addressing misunderstandings.
Our PA organization started with nothing more than a simple idea. Physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners—they all had established groups within our system. Why didn't PAs? Why not set up an organization where all PAs with privileges at
the facility were members, regardless of their employer? Why continue to complain about problems—such as the lack of PAs on hospital committees, chart documents that addressed
only physicians and NPs, and misspellings like physician's
assistant on formal documents? Why not address and solve these issues as a group? And that's exactly what we set out to do—form a PA council that can speak with a unified voice to PA-related issues, be a source of information about PAs, and promote the PA profession within the hospital and local community.
With the help of several like-minded PAs, we took this idea and transformed it into a plan. We spoke with many of the community's prominent physicians and quickly gained their support. One of our biggest supporters has been our physician liaison to the medical staff, Dr. Charles Castle. He provided sound advice and helped guide us through the complicated matters of hospital policy and politics. "Our physician assistants have become an increasingly important component of the medical care we provide at Lancaster General, so it was not difficult to convince our medical staff leadership to support these efforts to increase the visibility and responsibility of our PA colleagues. They have been a welcome addition to our hospital committee structure, and we look forward to even greater involvement and cooperation in the future," said Dr. Castle.
We also spoke with AAPA staff and with other PAs—such as Josanne Pagel, director of PA services at the Cleveland Clinic—who have set up similar programs around the country. These discussions helped us minimize early problems and led to a smoother start-up for the Council. Eventually, Dr. Castle's (and others') support, and our hard work, paid off. After several months, the Physician Assistant Council was formally approved.
Because the Council is new, we're still learning how to maximize our impact while limiting the time commitment required of our 60-plus members. Luckily, there has been no shortage of volunteers to help make the Council a sustainable and valuable organization. An executive committee was formed to handle many of the daily tasks to reduce the time requirements for others. We're in the process of placing PAs on hospital committees that have previously had no PA representation, addressing PA-related hospital issues, and establishing a local PA network.