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 Provided by Clinician 1
There are two moves that the PA profession should make and one that the NP profession should. As one who has spoken at many state, national and specialty meetings, I can tell you one thing; there is real ignorance between our two professions. It goes both ways. While many of us know that we do very much the same things, we really believe we do it differently. Let me tell you, we don’t. Not enough to make it a rallying point between the professions. But that can be the point of another blog.
A little story. At the AANP I wandered into an NP state organizations booth. We started discussing politics and PAs and NPs and how we could work together on things we agree on. All of the leaders were very, very, friendly and supportive and were became fast friends. One of the organizations past presidents asked me about the differences between NPs and PAs and pointed out they are really different. I said that generally we are not if you know the laws and the realities of day to day practice. One of my favorite sayings is if you watched an NP or a PA practicing from about 20 feet away you could not tell what their profession was. generally if they were a physician the same would hold true. She retorted that they had to be different “as PAs need a physician in the room or the room next door when they practice”. Another said that PAs did not have their own licenses, but practiced under the physicians license. Both these statements do not reflect PA practice as it is done in 2010. The point is I know they did not say this out of malace and I also know they really wanted to understand. Still, I was amazed. I told her and some of the other NPs did also that depending on the state, many PA laws were pretty close to allowing full automomy in practice and we spoke about the variation among state laws. They also were amazed and honestly had never spoken to a PA long enough to find this out.
Why am I relating this story? To make the point that we have hurt each others professions long enough because we do not really communicate. I have lectured at least 50 times at NP and PA meetings on the “Similarities and Differences between NPs and PAs” and have seen the ignorance on both sides long enough to know it hurts all of us. There are differences, but they are not large. The American College of Clinicians has worked for both professions for a number of years and is in the middle of transforming its mission. They will continue to work for both professions but it seems that this work will center more around NP and PA advocacy. In any case, they can not do it alone.
What I would like to ask of both our professions are two things. First is to set up formal liaisons between the AAPA and the AANP, and possibly the ACNP. Not just “working together on legislation” which we have in the past, but working together to understand each other. Working together to bring leaders together when needed, even at the state level. Working together to better and strengthen both professions. We need to look at each other as true colleagues, not as the people who want to “take my job”, or “who think they are as good as me “or whatever else some of us think about each other.
I would also ask the AAPA to form a formal liaison with the American Nurses Association. The nursing profession is crucial to our goal of insuring better healthcare in America and I can not speak for my NP colleagues on this one, but I know the nurses of America need to understand the PA profession better and see PAs as professionals who honor them. They should also know our profession has roots in theirs.
The time has come for us to meet, talk and understand each other better. I ask the AAPA and AANP to take the formal step that should have been taken years ago. It will go a long way to strengthening both professions.
 Dave has been a PA, and later NP, leader for thirty years. He strongly believes that NPs and PAs must work together to insure a better future for both professions. Most recently Dave has been busy launching another dream; Clinician 1, the first internet community for PAs and NPs. In October 2008, Dave was honored by the New Jersey State society of PAs with its “Lifetime Achievement Award”.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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