October 6 – 12 is Physician Assistant Week, an opportunity to celebrate the dedicated physician assistants making great care possible every day.
More than 140,000 physician assistants (PAs) conduct roughly 400 million patient interactions every year across the U.S., providing crucial capacity that our modern health care system needs to meet patient demand.
Unlike a physician or nurse practitioner, PAs do not specialize in a single area of medicine. Their strong general medical knowledge and skill set make them a critical part of any health care team and our ability to scale telemedicine programs to meet patients’ care needs. PAs act as full partners with physicians, diagnosing and treating a wide variety of patients in the same way a physician would.
PAs earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree before completing a minimum of 2,000 supervised clinical hours and passing the thorough Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) exam to earn certification. PAs must also complete continuing medical education throughout their career and pass recertification at regular intervals.
At Access TeleCare, PAs provide valuable capacity and skill that enables us to deliver excellent, timely care anywhere in the country. Our PAs work alongside physicians and other advanced practice providers to ensure that our hospital and clinic partners’ patients have timely access to great specialty care.
Learn more about the impact PAs have on our telemedicine programs here.
