 |
|
 |
 |
| |
|
|
| |
| Names, Words, Labels and Boxes |
 |
by David Mittman, PA - April 18, 2011
|
 Provided by Clinician 1
Reading more and more medical policy lately we still see bizarre terms and names being used to describe NPs and PAs, either singularly or together. One example would be licensed independent practitioners. For the last two years, my NP and PA “together” word is NEVER midlevel (way too complicated) but APC, advanced practice clinician. My word for a PA is clearly physician associate and the profession hopefully will soon make a decision to make our birth name our professions name again. Funny, all these other professions evolve. Why can’t we?
But there are more questions I would like to throw out for your consideration..........
When will we be able to call ourselves the specialties we practice? Podiatrists call themselves “surgeons”. Chiropractors, optometrists, and podiatrists now call themselves “physicians”. They are podiatric physicians and optometric physicians in New Jersey. Neither NPs or PAs want to be physicians but you foresee a day with you will put your specialty down the same way physicians do, for example; NP Cardiologist or PA-Hospitalist next to your name? Or maybe just hospitalist and cardiologist? Sort of like bacteriologist. A bacteriologist is someone who studies bacteria. You can have a master’s, PhD, PA, NP or MD? All are bacteriologists. In the military if you are a nurse or a physician or a PA you can all be called Captain or Major. Also many PTs, OTs and psychologists call themselves “therapists”. All are allowed to describe what they do in terms that fit multiple professions. Except us PAs and NPs. The one exception is clinicians. It’s a great word that describes many professions including ours and one we have used for generations.
How do you describe your specialty? Do you say you are a member of that specialty or just practice in it? Are you a geriatrician or a geriatric NP? Interestingly, for us NPs and PAs, some specialties just fit. Emergency medicine PA or NP fits. Cardiologist NP or PA, not there yet. Hospitalist PA fits, endocrinologist NP, not yet. Infectious Disease fits, pediatrician seems to be able to be coming soon? If we study a specialty for years do we not practice it? If a PA is harvesting a radial artery (something many PAs do with great skill) are they doing surgery? If they are, they are “surgeons”. If not, why not? Because they are not MDs? How does PA-surgeon sound? How about NP geriatrician or maybe even geriatrician?
And then comes the loaded word, the word “medicine”. For years some PA programs labeled themselves as “allied health” programs. That phrase has now lost its momentum and well it should have; PAs are licensed in medicine, so we are not allied to anything. I think almost all of us would agree we practice medicine. Yet, here is another question? Why do we not say we went to “medical school?” Why, if we practice it, can’t we say we were schooled in it? We did not study nursing or pharmacy or chiropractic in school, but for some reason we can’t say we went to “medical school”. Even for those of us that went to Duke Medical School, or Yale Medical School, or Stanford Medical School. Why can’t we have a lineage that admits our schools were in medicine? We all went to medical school, maybe even many NPs did also (but I won’t touch that one today). We just got a different degree. The difference is that the medical establishment does not see it that way. The study of medicine was never really opened for PAs in their eyes. To understand it, we need to see it as it is. We are not even medicine’s step children. They don’t even want to (or want us to) acknowledge our education is a medical one. In nursing, you can get a PhD, a DNP, a BSN or a certificate RN but you all can say you went to “nursing school”. Clearly some nurses can do what others cannot, prescribing for example, but they all went to nursing school. Regardless of degree, pharmacists all went to “pharmacy school”. PAs lack the same lineage.
As time goes on, many of the descriptive terms we use will change and evolve. Some will be natural, like NP and PA hospitalists. Some will take time like PA or NP cardiologist and some will require a paradigm shift. We are not there yet but we are on our way. It will come.
Interesting times we live in.
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.
RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE
You must be logged in
to recommend articles
|
 |
|
|
| JVL-PAC (Vancouver, WA) |
on 27 Apr 2011 at 12:37 pm |
|
| Nicely said Dave. I don\\\\\\\'t agree with those who think a name is just a name and what\\\\\\\'s important is for us to just continue to do what we do. The name attached to our profession influences how our MD colleagues view us, and by same extension, how the public/hospitals/clinics/any potential employers view us. It will influence our ability to negotiate appropriate pay/benefits, etc. There are still people out there who don\\\\\\\'t know what a PA or NP is or what they do. I personally think Associate Physician is perfect. I have a friend who is an Associate Principal at a high school and he performs many functions of the Principal on a daily basis. The Associate Principal has a similar/corresponding relationship to the Principal as an Associate Physician (PA or NP) would to the MD. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
