Open AccessThe Current and Future Role of Surgical Physician Assistants
Author(s) -
Henry B. Perry,
Don E. Detmer,
E L Redmond
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
annals of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.153
H-Index - 309
eISSN - 1528-1140
pISSN - 0003-4932
DOI - 10.1097/00000658-198102000-00002
Subject(s) - medicine , physician assistants , surgical procedures , patient care , family medicine , surgical nursing , residency training , nursing , surgery , medical education , health care , nurse practitioners , continuing education , primary nursing , nurse education , economics , economic growth
The chairman of departments of surgery in general hospitals with more than 400 beds were surveyed to assess their current and projected use of surgical physician assistants. Of the 552 institutions represented in our survey, surgical physician assistants were working in one-third, providing preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative care. Two-thirds of the chairmen felt that the introduction of physician assistants had improved surgical patient care in their institutions. In institutions with surgical housestaff, almost half the chairmen felt that surgical physician assistants had improved the quality of residency training. During the next five years an increase of 87% in the number of surgical physician assistants is projected by respondents. We conclude that appropriately trained and supervised surgical physician assistants will play an increasingly important role in improving the care of surgical patients and, by functioning as junior housestaff, make it possible to reduce the number of surgeons being trained.