Physician Assistants (PAs) are health care professionals licensed to practice medicine with physician supervision. As part of their comprehensive responsibilities, PAs conduct physical exams, diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, counsel on preventive health care, assist in surgery, and in virtually all states can write prescriptions. Within the physician-PA relationship, PAs exercise autonomy in medical decision making and provide a broad range of diagnostic and therapeutic services. PAs are also found in education, research, and administrative services.

Because of the close working relationship the PAs have with physicians, PAs are educated in the medical model designed to correlate with physician training. Upon graduation, physician assistants take a national certification examination developed by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants in conjunction with the National Board of Medical Examiners. To maintain their national certification, PAs must log 100 hours of continuing medical education every two years and sit for a recertification exam every six years. Graduation from an accredited physician assistant program and passage of the national certifying exam are required for state licensure.

PAs are found in all areas of medicine. They practice in areas of primary care medicine (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology) as well as psychiatry, surgery, and the surgical subspecialties. What a physician assistant does varies with training, experience, and state law. In addition, a PA’s scope of practice corresponds with the supervising physician’s practice as a PA will see many of the same types of patients as the physician. The unique relationship between a PA and the supervising physician is one of mutual trust and respect. The physician and PA practice as members of a medical team.