Physician Assistant Panel Discussion #1

As one of the fastest growing pre-health professional fields, becoming a Physician Assistant (PA) is something every pre-medical student should earnestly or at some point consider. As pre-medical students, we tend to have the narrow mindset of only becoming a physician and fail to open up to the broad range of opportunities that the healthcare field has to offer to us. While becoming a physician is the ultimate goal, it shouldn’t be the only goal. Becoming a physician assistant offers such alternative. Overall, there is no fundamental difference with between tasks performed by a PA and a physician. Today, physician assistants are well recognized and highly approved member of the health care team. They work independently with physicians and provide both diagnostic and therapeutic patient care in virtually all medical specialties and settings. Additionally, they perform physical examinations, take patient histories, order laboratory and diagnostic studies and develop impactful patient treatment plans. In other words, physician assistants have so much independence which mirrors that of physicians.

This semester, MAPS was able to invite several physician assistants from both the University of Rochester Medical Center and the Rochester area to provide their perspective on all things pertaining to becoming a physician assistant.

Firstly, Nancy Valentage, a professor at R.I.T College of Health Sciences and Technology was invited to speak to our interested members on the paths to becoming physician assistant. She offered her insights on what it means to be a PA with some supporting statistics on its projected continual growth, states with highest licensed PAs, average salary, and many more. She also spoke about the renowned pre-physician program at R.I.T. The following week, both Scott Kingsley and Lisa Fitzpatrick were physician assistant speakers. Scott Kingsley is a practicing physician for almost twenty years from the orthopedic Department at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) while Lisa Fitzpatrick is a practicing physician assistant for two years who also is from the orthopedic department at URMC. Through their varying range of experience in the field, both speakers shared both their similarities and differences of the PA profession.