Physician assistant practice settings

Physician assistants practice in a variety of environments. As an aspirant to become physician assistant , someone who has completed essential educaitonal qualification to become physician assistant and preparing for license, licensed physician assistant looking for prospective career, you can find this information handy. This details what are the typical environments you can expect to work with popularly called Physician assistant practice settings 1) Office‐based Practice - This can be practice by independent physicians as well as group practice wherein group of physicians share single premise as well as resources. Most of the jobs in USA demand physician assistants to work in such env 2) Hospital - Physician assistants work in an hospital setup. They typically work in shifts as set by hospital norms 3) Federal government facility - Typically hospital or unit belonging to federal government 4) Community health center 5) Rural health clinic 6) Public or community health clinic that are non-federal in nature 7) Occupational health setting 8) School‐based or college‐based health center or school clinic 9) Extended care facility/nursing home 10) Behavioral/mental health facility 11) Ambulatory surgical center 12) Free clinic 13) Rehabilitaon facility 14) Home health care agency 15) Hospice 16) Other facilities What does a physician assistant do in these practice setup? In general physician assistant performs the tasks of physicians or surgeon under their supervision. As such following are some of the typical job roles and responsibilities of a physician assistant 1) Patient medical history - Their task starts with collecting medical history of patients, reviewing the information collected 2) They conduct physical exams like annual physicla exam, kids well-child physical exam if they are approved by physicians to do so. This offloads the job of physicians 3) Disagnostic tests - They have capacity to order simple diagnostic tests like x-ray, bloodwork , interpret the results 4) Treating patients by performing tasks like immunizing patients 5) Educate patients - Provide details on healthcare risks, health coaching, counselling, explaining medical condition of patients, risks associated with their health etc 6) Though not doctors they can prescribe medicines 7) Assist surgeons in surgery 8) Get involved in therapeutic procedurs like removal of sutures etc after surgery