The Suffocated Physician Assistant

The Physician Assistant profession was created to improve and expand healthcare. In the mid-1960’s physicians and educators recognized there was a shortage of primary care physicians.

To help remedy this, Eugene A. Stead Jr. MD of the Duke University Medical Center, put together the first class of Physician assistants in 1965. He selected four Navy Hospital corpsmen who had received considerable medical training during their military service. Stead based the curriculum of the PA program on his knowledge of the fast-track training of doctors during World War II. The PA concept was lauded early on and gained Federal acceptance and backing as early as the 1970s as a creative solution to Physician shortages. The medical community helped support the new profession and spurred the setting of accreditation standards, establishment of a national certification process and standardized examination and development of continuing medical education requirement.

In Ghana, the profession started in 1969 not only in response to the acute shortage of physician in the country but also due to the mal-distribution of health work force in general. Over the years, the profession has being exposed to challenges even after so many years of its existence.

The unclear statuses limit the physician assistance abilities to participate innovation. There are some people (patients, physicians, family) who just don’t get what you are doing as a Physician assistant; and who do not trust you no matter how many times you explain how you were trained. It can and is extremely difficult to have to work with physicians who do not think you are capable of quality patient care. In some cases, patients choose not to be attended by physician assistants simply because they think they are not as qualified as the Medical Doctors to diagnose and treat. Most at times, physicians themselves doubt the abilities of the Physician assistant which undermines physician assistants to take part in innovations. On the flipside, you will probably have people asking you to treat them the first day you start physician assistant’s school and think you have all of the answers.

In Ghana, the main concept of the PA profession is to improve primary health care in underserved communities. But the Physician Assistants are finding it very hard to deliver the services due to lack of economic incentives for physician assistants. Physicians are sent to remote areas with bad conditions such as poor roads, no electricity, poor network and unclean water after graduating from school. To worsen matters, they are not given incentives to even compensate them in place of these harsh conditions. Physician assistants do not go on strike like physicians but yet still their hard work and efforts are not recognized and rewarded all due to their unclear statues and this is making physician assistants leave their families and loved ones and go to these undeserved communities to provide quality health care but are still not recognized

Again in Ghana, one of the challenges physician assistants face is lack of clinical training sites for physician assistant students

In my submission, I suggest or recommend that, these challenges can be minimized and eventually eradicated at the end. If physicians are allowed to operate as an autonomous body with a well-defined job description to improve upon their work output. Also, incentives that are due us to be given in other for us to accept ourselves as the Physician assistants that we are. Clinical training sites should be provided to physician assistant student’s in other for students to equip themselves before coming out as certified physician assistants. Patients should also be given education on physician assistants; who we are, what we do and what we can do to help them so that they can also have trust in us as they have in the nurses and the doctors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Dr. Kingsley Pereko
Miss. Aba Yedua Anaman
Mr. Collins Ohemeng
Miss. Jennifer Ampomah
Craig Afadzie Bentil
Physician Assistant Student
Level 200
University of Cape Coast, Ghana
[email protected]