I’m tired. My neck has been hurting for 8 months straight, non-stop, every day, and my left hand feels like there are ants crawling all over it. I hate this pain. I hate getting dressed, I hate the traffic, I hate Mondays, I hate onions, and I especially hate going to the doctor. Somehow, I dragged myself to this doctor’s office, gave a fake-smile to the receptionist, and filled out all of their annoying paperwork. Now I’m finally in an exam room waiting for the doctor. If he doesn’t magically fix all my problems in this one visit, I swear I’m gonna lose it. I sit impatiently, and scroll through yesterday’s news on my iPhone. In walks some doofus in a white coat who introduces himself as a Physician’s Assistant. Who is this clown?! I came to see a doctor, not an assistant! That’s it!! I’m gone!! I will be yelling at everyone on my way out, and I will be writing an awful review about this place!
A fairly dramatic hypothetical situation, but this does occasionally happen albeit to a lesser extent. Patients sometimes feel that they are getting short-changed by not seeing a doctor. After all, I came to a doctor’s office; I thought I was supposed to see an actual doctor.
PAs are getting a bad rap. These are highly-trained and highly-educated healthcare professionals who work closely with doctors, and function as an extension of them. They have schools and programs which are just as difficult to get into as medical schools (if not more difficult.)
If I’m in the procedure room working on a patient, I’m not going to rush. So you have two options; you could wait patiently for me to finish, or you could see the extender (who will tell you the exact same thing that I would.) Why not chat with the extender for a few minutes, and see what they have to say? What could it hurt? If you still aren’t satisfied, just politely let the extender know that you’d prefer to see the doctor, and we’ll have someone escort you out. Just kidding, I’ll be right in.
There is an algorithm to pain management, and the physician assistant knows it very well. Yes, there are definitely some nuances, but remember that the PA works with the physician to formulate your plan. Don’t be pretentious, don’t be a snob, let the PA take care of you. Just be happy you are seeing a physician assistant, and not a nurse practitioner. NPs are so useless lol.
