PAstudent Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 Hi moderators (and everyone else ), Thanks! I think it is fantastic that these new forums have been created but I must admit that the placement of NPs and PAs together into one forum caused me some pause because, as a PA student who has several NP friends, I am well aware that, despite lay persons lumping NPs and PAs together, we don't have a lot in-common beyond the shared-goal of making our patients better. I think that many people tend to think that PAs and NPs are somehow similar when, in truth, we are very different. I don't want NPs to feel threatened by PAs or PAs by NPs. PAs function in an entirely different way than NPs and the training of a PA is different from the training of an NP. Because this inappropriate lumping together has become so common The Canadian Association of Physician Assistants has created a document to address some of the points of confusion that seem to be prevalent: http://www.caopa.net/images/stories/COMPARISON_PA_NP_final_aug2010.pdf I hope that this forum can be a place to share knowledge and camaraderie between NPs and PAs. I just don't want this forum to become a venue for the PA vs NP debates I have seen elsewhere. Here are some direct quotes from the CAPA document linked to above: PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT: Definition: Academically prepared and highly skilled health care professionals who practice medicine, providing medical care that extends a physician's services within a formalized physician supervised practice arrangement. NURSE PRACTITIONER: Registered nurses with advanced education and training in a clinical specialty who can perform legislated nursing services independently, and delegated medical acts with physician supervision PA scope of practice: Scope of Practice The supervising physician has relatively broad discretion in delegating medical tasks within his/her scope of practice to the PA according to provincial or state regulations A Practice Contract is established. PA Role does not require on-site supervision but communication access to the supervisor is required NP scope of practice: Nursing care is provided as an independent function within defined parameters; however, protocols, written, or verbal orders are required for delegated medical acts - some acts may require Physician supervision. Each Province has modifications to the degree of independent practice authorized and scope of practice authorized. PA education: Education Affiliated with Medical Programs Previous health care experience recommended or higher educational qualifications obtained; Many have bachelors degree and a growing percentage hold Graduate degrees on acceptance to a program. PA Medical Education curriculum is advanced science based material with 11 months of didactic and over 2000 clinical clerkship hours required. All PAs are trained as generalists in a primary care medical model and some receive post-graduate specialty training. A Canadian National Competency Profile defines procedural and clinical skill components with emphasis on diagnosis, treatment, and patient education following the CANMEDS format. NP education: Affiliated with Nursing schools BSN is prerequisite; curriculum is biopsychosocial based, based upon behavioral, natural, and humanistic sciences. NPs choose a specialty training track in adult, acute care, pediatric, women’s health or gerontology. Approx. 500 didactic hours and 500-700 clinical hours post Nursing degree. Emphasis on patient education, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Generally not trained for surgical settings. Post graduate education often Master’s level prepared Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Wong Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 Hi there, I lumped the two groups into this forum mainly because I see both physician assistants and nurse practitioners belonging to the same category of health care professionals, in that they function as physician extenders. Both groups share the same identity problem in that they are both emerging groups of practitioners (moreso in Canada, as both groups have a much larger presence in the US healthcare system). I didn't want to create separate forums for the two areas, and I think that having the two fields co-habitate in the same forum may boost the number of visitors. A critical mass of visitors and posters needs to be present for a specific forum to be self-sustaining. If lumping these two health care practitioners together into a single forum proves to be a bad or unworkable idea, then it would be easy to move the nurse practitioner posts into the nursing forum, and leave this forum entirely dedicated to physician assistants. But for right now, I think if you isolated this forum to physician assistants only, we might get very few posts and few return visitors. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebouque Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 I think it makes sense to group them together in one forum, just like OT and PT have been grouped in one forum as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteteeth Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 oh come on i want to be a PA but even i'll admit that, in the end, they do the same thing. Exactly. And for the "NPs don't really do surgery" part... well, RN First Assist (Although they aren't NPs) generally do the same surgical assist procedures that PAs do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteteeth Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 when you say "does surgery" do you mean PA's actually perform surgical procedures? or do you mean doing the same thing as an OR nurse does? I don't think that you're actually performing the surgery as PA or RNFA. You get to assist in procedures (suturing, opening, etc) From what I've heard, PAs do the same thing that RN First Assist do. What RN First Assist do is what family docs used to do in OR. There are several kinds of OR nurses (Scrub, First Assist, Circulation, etc) OR RN Anesthesia http://www.ornac.ca/assistants.phtml I think the pilot program pay was like $97,000/year? Good pay OR RN First Assist http://www.ornac.ca/rnfa/competency.phtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteteeth Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 i thought PA's and NP's did suturing (and even some minor surgical procedures) autonomously? RN's do the "assisting" what does that even mean? hand the doctor the instruments? Handing the doctors the instruments are done by scrub OR nurses. I haven't been to OR yet, and I'm not sure if there are any NPs working in OR or not. I've seen NPs working in cardiology, orthopedics, anesthesia... they function as residents (from what they've told me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteteeth Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 yeah i dont know what place a PA or NP would have in the OR but i definitely know that they can at least suture thats the whole reason they exist, to take away menial tasks like that from the doctors, doing things nurses can't quite do. I'm not sure if any of their tasks are really considered to be menial in OR... Suturing isn't that hard. I've learned how to do suture on a simulation doll during my first year in nursing (Well, I learned it from a NP and not everyone gets a chance to do this). What I'm allowed to do in nursing (within my scope of practice) is remove sutures and staples. I've done both during my clinical rotation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteteeth Posted November 3, 2011 Report Share Posted November 3, 2011 lol staples i had those put in when i was in elementary school i couldn't believe they actually did that "is...is this man taking a stapler to my head?" *click* "yes yes he is" You're currently in science undergrad yes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAstudent Posted November 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 I'm not sure if any of their tasks are really considered to be menial in OR... . Of possible relevance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845948/?tool=pubmed and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17727208 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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