Physician's Assistants

[MissMarplesNiece]

How would you feel as a parent if you knew your seriously ill child's treatment was being managed by a Physicians Assistant who had just two years training, only 3 weeks of which had been spent in paediatrics?

This isn't the first advert I've seen recruiting PAs into paediatric departments. This is a post at Registrar level so why isn't a qualified medical doctor being recruited for the post?

Why are NHS Trusts playing fast and loose with children's health?

I share the comment of a previous poster. That's a lot of faith to put into software development and testing.
Someone has to teach the machine in the first place as a starting point and help develop it. Who decides what an expert is to teach the machine?

The people who currently train human doctors will be able to train machines and they would only need to do it once.

Then the machine will analyse cases alongside human doctors and learn from each case.

It is just like teaching. It is so ridiculous for teachers all round the country to do exactly the same lesson when you could have the best teacher in the country record the lesson and show it everyone. Then the local teachers could spend time helping the kids that are struggling.

@IMustDoMoreExercise but teachers change the lesson for every class they teach. One dude can never fit all.
Patients are the same. Everyone is unique so AI won't work.

It seems every real, properly qualified role must be reduced to "assistant" with about 10% of the knowledge and experience.

Soon there will only be these inferior assistants.

Sorry, I cannot believe that they change the lessons that much. If you have 30 kids that are not streamed, the lesson for one class of 30 is going to be the virtually the same as another class of 30. It is very unlikely that you will get one class where every child is so much better or worse than every child in the other class. In each class you will have kids who are top of the class and others who are bottom. The teacher will have to cater for top and bottom in each class.

I can't remember where I read it, but the teaching profession believes that Ai can support doctors but not supplant them.

Teacher teach different classes every day. In a school there may be six or seven sets per year so 35 different age and abilities, plus sixth form. One maths lesson does not fit all!

Yes, of course. I know that a year 7 top set maths class will need a different lesson from a GCSE class.

So there would be a recorded lesson for each of those classes. But it would only need to be done once for the whole country and the local teachers could concentrate on the kids who were struggling.

@IMustDoMoreExercise no, that's not how it works. Each lesson will be tailored for those particular students. Different questions will need to be asked, different problems will be encountered. Each student is an individual.
So a top set can be v v different to another top set. And bottom sets will vary widely

The arrogance and ignorance as I have said is evident. Interesting that many of you feel the job of a doctor can be done for Band 4 pay!

I have worked with over 30+ PAs now and like nurses doctors physios etc , there are good bad and bloody brilliant PAs. They bring a knowledge base far above the average Band 4 healthcare worker, many have other degrees in other allied medical topics.

The model works well in other countries - how about educating yourself on what they have done and realise how we could free up other professionals time by developing and growing our workforce in other directions.

Interesting that many of you feel the job of a doctor can be done for Band 4 pay!
The whole point of this is that PAs are not doctors. The role is supposed to be assisting doctors, not pretending to be doctors, being paid more than actual real doctors and making doctors unemployed.
A band 4 assistant would free up a doctor from routine stuff to do the things that PAs are not qualified to do.
Also in other countries PAs are closely regulated and properly trained. Australia has just rowed back from introducing PAs.

A band 7 role will not just have 2 years of training. They will have a degree at minimum, and then will need more experience on top of that to get band 7

I wonder in what role you worked with 30+ PAs, and how you were able to assess their knowledge and skills.

It’s awful. My Mum had incredibly complex medical needs, ended up having a serious fainting fit. Ambulance called, checked over by paramedics, they say that due to complexity of conditions GP should be seen. Elderly parents told a GP is coming, PA turns up and my parents don’t realise they’re not a GP. An entirely wasted and pointless use of resources as PA have similar level of training to a paramedic who’d already checked!

Only when he retrospectively asked was it a PA did GPs confirm it was. Bloody dangerous.

That's shocking and negligent

It’s definitely worrying how unclear the communication can be. A lot of the issues people are raising here seem to come down to transparency. Most patients (and their families) assume they’re seeing a doctor unless told otherwise, and that’s a huge problem if someone isn’t aware they’re being treated by a PA or another role with a different scope of training. Whatever anyone thinks of the PA role itself, patients should at least know exactly who is treating them and what their qualifications are. (There’s a useful overview of how physician associates are supposed to work under a supervising medical director here, if you’re interested: https://www.medicaldirectorco.com/medical-director-for-pa/)

Doctors have taken the GMC to court. Anyone read about it ? Doubt it, as mainstream media are not reporting it. Follow the money …

https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-backed-high-court-case-brought-by-parents-of-emily-chesterton-and-anaesthetists-united-against-gmc-over-regulation-of-pas-begins

Sadly it’s all about money.

This thread is almost a year old

So ? Issue has only got worse. Not gone away. Want to see a doctor ? You need to ask as you’re probably not. They are unable to get jobs as the more expensive and less trained PAs are being given them.

I just meant that if you were replying to the OP, she’s probably not around to answer

Recent research? If you are aware of recent research, would you mind giving the references for these studies, please?

PAs can't prescribe.

They have 18 months of knowledge after potentially a history degree. Yet they earn more than doctors.

Some are illegally prescribing. But no one seems to care. Patients have died.