University Directory and Information on Physician Assistant Career

Physician assistant is one who takes care of various jobs like therapeutic, diagnostic, as well as preventive health care under the active supervision of the physicians and surgeons. Treating minor injuries, broken bones, applying casts, and interpreting x-rays they help the physicians and surgeons in a range of clinical jobs.

Job Profile

Basic features of the job of physician assistant are as follows –
They are trained as well as experienced medical professionals;
They enjoy facing a variety of daily challenges;
Self motivation is one of the key qualities in them;
Well organized and with good bedside manners, they are also able to work under huge stress; andr
They may work beyond normal hours despite having specific job hours.

Location Dependant

Job of the physical assistant is largely dependent on the location of their job. In many rural areas they could be the primary health care providers. In addition; they would be responsible for supervision, equipment ordering, emergency medicine administration, or carrying out orthopedic and geriatric cases. Many assistants hold a couple or more of part time jobs instead of one and rotate among the hospitals and clinics. When the organization looks forward to hiring a permanent assistant, such rotation could help.

Training and Education

Basic requirements of training and education for the physician assistant are =

A bachelor’s degree;
Experience as registered nurse, physical therapist, respiratory therapist, military medics, or the EMTs.
Programs usually take two years to complete and some of the programs include clinical courses as well.
Coursework includes anatomy, physiology, chemistry, biology, and other health related topics like nutrition, virology, and immunology.
Some of the assistants also go up to obtaining the master’s degree.

Job Opportunities

More than 50% of the physician assistants work in the offices of the physicians and hold over 75,000 posts in the country. However, many of these assistants hold multiple jobs or else the number could be much greater. Employment is likely to grow by 27% by 2016 and the career prospects for aspirant candidates are quite bright. One of the reasons is that physicians like to hire them instead of additional physicians.

Earnings

According to the BLS reports, the mean annual income of the physician assistants were in the range of $77,000 in 2007 and highly qualified and efficient assistants earned in the range of $100,000 overall during a year.