To put that I don’t want to be treated by PAs in my ELCS birth plan?

Indeed but it is patients that suffer. I will not support my taxes providing sub-par care. The equivalent is a paralegal defending you in court. Well beyond their depth

You can't count 3 years spent studying something else that isn't medicine. That is ridiculous

There are graduates who later decide they want to do medicine - they do a 4 year condensed medical degrees. What PAs are taught is not medicine and they get a crash course in assisting doctors - which is what their role is designed to do.

Scope creep - where people do things they are not trained to do - occurs due to strain on the system and you end up with higher rates of errors than those who are trained and experienced and can work things out from first principles.

If a global leading medical doctor with decades of experience can question things they see - that tells you all you need to know about PAs working beyond their scope

The government knows this anyway and are now going to create a fast track 4 year medical degree. That has it's own issues but at least it will be a full curriculum!

If a PA enjoys medicine and wants to practice - they can apply for medical school.

I would not be surprised if the government and NHS managers see PAs as a way of mitigating industrial action. Not being in the doctor's union and not having a qualification that is recognised abroad must make them quite appealing to the government. Who don't have any particular interest in how their clinical practice compares.

I don’t think birth plans actually need to be adhered to in any way do they? Medical need and hospital procedure will always take precedence so yeah talk to them but I don’t think the birth plan would be the best place to put it if you 100% are sure you don’t want something.

Do you need 10 years of rotational training, expensive exams and lots of stress to do a surgery. Or not. Because if not, lots of doctors can stop now, become PAs and work happily as surgeons without any of the extra crap.

why can't doctors become PAs
Yes, good question. Sure they are overqualified for the job but tha's no bar in other professions. A teacher is allowed to work as a TA for example.
Must be to do with the bizarre fact that PAs earn more than doctors. Imagine if schools started recruiting TAs at twice the salary of teachers and allowed them to teach classes instead of teachers.

@Calamitousness but as a patient am I told that the person drilling into my skull isn't a doctor with a 5 year degree, 2 years foundation jobs and many many years and hard exams in speciality training ? Or are those things not really needed to drill into my skull and you can do it after a 2 year v simple degree and a few years training ? Both things can't be true. You either need the long hard training, or you don't. If not, then why can't doctors become PAs ? They'd earn more and not be used as ward monkeys (which I believe was supposed to be the job of the new assistants).

@BPquestion of course they are formally trained or do you only count that to occur in a university undergrad med degree. Your FY docs are not competent to do burr holes out of med school. They are trained on the job by experienced clinicians the same as PA. In fact a massive amount of skilled training occurs ‘on the job’ for all doctors as well as other healthcare professions. There will be assessment of that persons competence and underlying pathophysiology taught as well. Don’t be ridiculous. I am not saying I support PA progression in all NHS specialties or all parts of medical role. But neither should you, a person who is not understanding of healthcare, be trying to scaremonger. By all means share concerns but to continue perpetuating myth around professionals not being trained is not helpful. You are suggesting that anyone could walk in and just start drilling. That is not the case.

@BPquestion watching the anger on Twitter about the posters calling PAs Physicians and Specialists . Seems to have pissed off all doctors this time !

@BPquestion
that’s exactly what @Neurodiversitydoctor was saying. That’s a burr hole procedure.

www.gponline.com/devastated-partners-highly-rated-gp-practice-hand-back-contract/article/1876776

I'd still rather it was a trained doctor going near my spinal cord or drilling into my skull. Whatever you call it.

A lumber puncture is not neurosurgery. Neither is a burr hole, please don't be so alarmist.

Some at GOSH doing surgery on neonates. It's terrifying !

hmm. .....maybe they were an AA in training? because AA would at least be drawing up drugs/doing other things whereas the way you described it sounds like an ODP

yes I realise. but that is not what the poster was describing.

can't believe you felt you were too stupid to do Anaesthetics!!! hope it wasn't some ego tripped consultant who made you feel like that!

oh yes never seen AAs in obs. the ones in our Trust do the ortho lists (they are damn good and I look sooo incompetent next to them lol) and in icu supporting the reg on call

I work as part of a surgical team in our Trust PA s are used to support on wards
They may assist in Theatres but as they are unable to prescribe, I can't imagine a scenario where they would be left to operate on their own without supervision?
I agree they should not be used in place if medical team but do bear in mind these PAs kept many of your elective operations possible and wards covered during the strikes to allow senior Consultants to cover where needed!

Anaesthetic associates are the anaesthetic equivalent of PAs, they've been around longer.i debated becoming one when I deemed myself too stupid to do Anaesthetics when came across AAs in med school. Till realised they won't allow medicine as a medically related entrance degree to be a PA/AA. They can only anaesthetise for very healthy minimal comorbidities and routine surgery under a 1:2 consultant supervision ratio. Seems to be creeping in the trust tha have them though.

I've never seen them in obs in 8y of Anaesthetics tho they tend to be mainly in ortho doing regional blocks

Definitely an AA. Said so on his name page. I wouldn’t have really noticed it if I hadn’t seen the threads on MN about it.

exactly. trainee doctors also need supervision and also are usually coupled with consultants for training purposes. in fact PAs almost never have the consultant in with them whereas training doctors almost always will be allocated to a consultant especially in operating theatres.

and PAs are not slower! they are faster than a lot of trainee doctors because they usually to ver specific things. eg. the PAs in my trust who do regional block lists do the blocks much faster than even most consultants because they do far more of the exact same cases.