AAPA

Physician assistants work in all medical and surgical specialties and settings as part of physician-PA teams.

Work Settings

AAPA collects information each year on the areas of practice and work settings of physician assistants. In 2008, more than 43 percent of PAs worked in group practices or solo physician offices, and more than one-third were found in hospitals. The remaining PAs were located in rural clinics, community health centers, freestanding surgical facilities, nursing homes, school- or college-based facilities, industrial settings, and correctional systems.

Specialties

According to the 2008 census report, PAs practice in

• family and general medicine (25.9 percent)
• general internal medicine and its subspecialties (15.6 percent)
• general surgery and surgical subspecialties (25.1 percent)
• pediatrics and pediatric subspecialties (4.3 percent)
• emergency medicine (10.5 percent)
• occupational medicine (2.3 percent)
• obstetrics and gynecology (2.3 percent)
• dermatology (3.6 percent)
• and other areas of medicine.

Impact

AAPA estimates that in 2008

• approximately 257 million patient visits were made to physician assistants.
• approximately 332 million medications were prescribed or recommended by PAs.

Scope of Practice

• Physicians may delegate to PAs those medical duties that are within the physician’s scope of practice and the PA’s training and experience.
• State medical and PA practice acts and regulations generally allow physicians broad delegatory authority, which permits flexible, customized team practice.
• In facilities such as hospitals, PAs obtain clinical privileges through a system similar to the one used for physicians.
• All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam authorize PAs to prescribe.