Kevin Lohenry was in the military before he became a physician assistant.
He's the past president of the Physician Assistant Education Association.
"I was a Navy flight medic, a corpsman, back in the late '80s, early '90s,
and I met a PA who was a Navy PA," says Lohenry. "We have PAs in the Navy
that actually took care of President Obama and the vice-president and... take
care of the men and women who serve in the military.
"So I met one who was one of the earliest PAs to graduate from Duke University
back in the early '70s -- Duke started (its program) in 1965," Lohenry adds.
"What I saw was a profession where you could go to school for a little bit
less time (than medical school) but you could still practice medicine under
the supervision of a physician and have a fair amount of autonomy, and that
was very attractive to me."
Lohenry graduated from a PA program in 1996. He started out working in
an internal medicine practice and stayed there about seven years.
"I had the opportunity to practice working in a hospital setting, a long-term
care facility and an outpatient practice," says Lohenry. "And then I started
to teach part time and... then in 2003 I went to full-time education and part-time
practice." Lohenry did that for about two years until he became a program
director. Later, while working on a PhD, he quit practicing for a few years,
but soon he'll be helping patients again.
"I'm in the process of getting my license to work at a clinice at the University
of Southern California, so I'll be back working in clinics again here shortly,"
says Lohenry.
Lohenry says he sees certain qualities in people who become physician assistants.
"They're down-to-earth people, they're flexible, they're compassionate,
they want to make a difference in the world," says Lohenry. "They really love
the brainteasers of these clinical cases that come in. They love the challenge
of that.
"And they get an opportunity as a health-care provider to solve a lot of
patients' problems through... critical thinking and clinical reasoning," Lohenry
adds. "So, it's a great job if you like mysteries, if you like to help people,
if you like to be rewarded for your efforts. PAs make a very good salary and
they generally really enjoy their jobs."
Because the profession is quite new, "...physician assistants have to
be pioneers and spokespeople," says Ian Jones, director of a physician assistant
education program. "They have to be interested in communicating with individuals
and listening to the stories of their patients. They have to be inquisitive
and accept all the concepts of team medicine and collaborative practice and
collaborative care. Individual characteristics [include] inquisitive, bright,
hardworking, but willing to work in a team."
Jones now works full time in education. When he practiced as a PA in Alaska,
every day was different.
"I would [do] a few... physical exams," says Jones. "I would do a suturing,
I would take care of sports injuries. I would help someone manage their diabetes
or their cholesterol. You know, general medical practice. I would have maybe
once a week... somebody who would do something stupid -- get hit by a car
or a train, or fall off their bike or off the side of a mountain.
"The typical day is a little bit of everything, from newborns, to well
(healthy) child check-ups, to doing a house call, to a [senior] who is living
at home and slowly dwindling -- geriatric medicine," Jones adds. "It was
dealing with behavioral or psychiatric health issues [and] doing high school
sports physicals. It's getting to know your patients and figuring out what
you can do. When I worked in neurosurgery... I'd be seeing patients in the
emergency room or the clinic. I'd be assisting in the operating room. I'd
be doing rounds and managing the patient care while they're up in the ward,
and then picking up the phone and calling my doctors and just keeping them
informed on what's happening with the patients."
Before becoming a PA, Jones was a firefighter-paramedic for 17 years.
"I became a PA because it allowed me to continue to practice medicine and
take care of people," says Jones. "It was the ability to practice medicine
in a team, with a physician. It was a constant need to learn more and yet
knowing that there was somebody beside me to help me out."
Chelsea Sauve decided to enter the PA program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse,
NY, after completing a bachelor's in biology with a minor in psychology.
She graduated in the summer of 2011. The program involved one year of classroom
study and one year of clinical rotation.
"I actually didn't really know about the PA profession until I was a junior
in undergrad," says Sauve. "I took a year off between undergrad and PA school
to gain some more experience. I was originally premed [but] I wasn't sure
if med school was the right choice for me....
"[M]y mother works in different parts of the hospital back home -- it's
a very rural area," Sauve adds. "And she knew a PA that worked in the in-house
clinic that was more than willing to take me on as just a shadow to just let
me gain some experience. So I spent a week shadowing him.
"He educated me on the profession and just to see his definite job satisfaction
and just the joy that he had doing his job in everyday life, it was very inspiring.
So I took it upon myself to contact other PAs that were around the same hospital
and shadow them and see what their job was in various different specialties.
Once I did that, learned more about the profession and what PAs were and what
they did, I just knew that that was the choice for me and that was the direction
for me to take."
Ky Haverkamp is a professor in the MEDEX Northwest Physician Assistant
Program at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He's also a practicing
PA.
Haverkamp says that the amount of a doctor's activities that a PA can do
varies depending on the setting. "If I'm in cardiothoracic surgery, I'm not
going to be the primary surgeon, but I can be the first assist and work alongside
with them, and you're in the chest doing stuff with the surgeon there who
is primarily responsible," says Haverkamp.
"However, if I work in primary care, I'm diagnosing diabetes and hypertension,
and talking to patients about lifestyle changes, getting them to stop smoking,
lose weight, exercise. So you're seeing a lot of different things with a high
level of responsibility and you're working very independently, and... the
key is that you have to know your limits.
"And I think part of that key is that relationship with the physician and
you negotiate that and you talk about it," Haverkamp adds. "If you have the
right precepting [teaching] physician, you can continually expand your skill
set and... if you're talking about a percentage, if I start out at 70 percent
of what they do, then I can work up to probably 80 to 90 percent of what they
can do, with that adequate support and education and lifelong learning."