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| Out of Sight-Out of Mind-Should Not Happen With NPs and PAs |
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by David Mittman, PA - December 13, 2010
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 Provided by Clinician 1
A few days ago, I listened to a webinar with audience questions that was posted on Clinician 1 and produced by a magazine called “Modern Healthcare” (http://clinician1.com/posts/article/aafp_aafp_iom_webcast/). It was quite enlightening. It had the President of the AANP and the President of the AAFP giving their respective sides on the IOM report on “The Future of Nursing”. There was no PA representative there, nor should there have been. Even so, the PA profession was generally omitted from the discussion, even about the future of primary care. As you would expect, most of the conversation centered on the parts of the report that had to do with advanced practice nursing and primary care. The NP position was what most of us would imagine and the AAFP position was that physicians should be “involved” in all care. I must say that some of the things said by the AAFP President were quite enlightening and should be new open points of discussion for the future. He actually said something like in the future no one will practice independently and that medicine would only be practiced by teams.Of course, he did not ask for his practice act to include a PA or NP for him to be able to practice. He willingly acknowledged that NPs were good and had a real place in the provision of primary care. He said that “even he” works with NPs in his practice and that they were wonderful or something close to that. He never used the expression “Captain of the Ship”, which was a revelation to me. It seemed to me that both Presidents represented their constituents and that the AAFP had come a long way.
I believe that real change is incremental and I heard change. The interchange was healthy and good.
That being said, a few things bugged me. The PA profession was mentioned one time in the almost one hour webinar but honestly treated as if it was invisible. I realize that some of the webinar was a reaction by both groups to the IOM report which addressed nursing, but much of the content was also about who would provide primary care in the future. Both professions acted as if there were two professions who could provide primary care and that was that. Truth is there are three and I have always advocated that all three must acknowledge that all three exist and all three can contribute to the new healthcare system. As many of my NP and PA colleagues have realized, we are all in this together. When physicians leave us out we feel badly but when we PAs and NPs leave each other out, we do each other a disservice. I also realize that if this was a PA organizational president they very well might have done the same thing. I am clearly asking for that change to come from both sides.
The other point was that the AAFP president spoke about doing another study that looked at care given by NPs and care given by family doctors. Again was he speaking to just the IOM report or speaking to NPs because that is who he figured would be listening? Whatever the case, I would like him to know that PAs would also like to be included in this future study. I think PAs would do quite well, surprisingly well. The AAPA and the AANP should work right along with the AAFP to see where each of our three professions strengths and weaknesses lie when it comes to delivery and outcomes. After all we all own a stake in the future of healthcare and all of us are needed to contribute. Or maybe we can act like we all have acted for the last 40 years and hope that if we are not mentioned, we might just go away?
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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| Ohio PA |
on 14 Dec 2010 at 10:46 pm |
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Dave-
Let me get this straight- the AANP and the AAFP produce a webinar discussing the future of health care and give no significant recognition to PA's. This is, as you acknowledge, not surprising. You are ,obviously, very aware of the antagonistic attitude that the AANP holds toward the PA profession. Yet you proudly embrace the role of NP/ PA advocate inviting all to join you in creating one big happy PA/NP family. How's that working for you?
After all these years do you not realize that to advocate for the NP is to alienate the PA and the physician. |
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