Physicians Assistant listed as 2nd in top 50 jobs: Money Magazine
Wednesday January 13, 2010
According to Money Magazine, being a Physician's Assistant is one of the best career choices a person can make after the job was deemed the second best job in the United States for 2009. The survey found that the job as a physician's assistant was "MD Lite" in that in involved all the satisfaction of patient care and treatment without the insurance responsibility that affects physicians.
Physician Assistant statistics included a Median salary of $90,900 with a projected 10 year job growth rate of 27 per cent and a massive online job advertisement growth of 54 per cent from April 2009-August 2009.
Top Ten Best Jobs in 2009 (US)
- Systems Engineer
- Physician Assistant
- College Professor
- Nurse Practitioner
- IT Project Manager
- CPA
- Physical Therapist
- Network Security Consultant
- Intelligence Analyst
- Sales Director
A career as a physician's assistant is quickly becoming a popular choice for those individuals interested in a life in the medical industry, but hesitant about the work load attached to being a physician themselves.
Physician assistants are able to perform a majority of the same duties that qualified physicians perform, however they must operate under the supervision of a physician in the area of specialty, whether this is general medicine or a specific branch of medicine. However, physician assistants do not require as much training as physicians and are limited in what they are legally permitted to do depending on which state they work in.
Physician Assistant duties include:
- performing examinations
- interpreting diagnostic results and diagnosing illnesses
- prescribing medication or referrals to specialists
- performing some procedures
- ordering treatments
- assisting in surgery
While this may be a general list of duties that the average physician's assistant will carry out, the actual list of jobs will be more specified depending on the area of which the assistant has chosen to focus. All physicians' assistants will be trained across all branches of medicine in a general way so that they possess a broad medical knowledge, however, they will have to select an area of study that will be their principle focus.
As they are there to assist the physician, it will be determined by which physician, and therefore which branch of medicine, they chose to focus on that sets out their daily duties.
The choice of which specialty will also play a part in determining the location or workplace of a physician's assistant with most working within clinics, local physician's offices and hospitals while there also being positions vacant in public health clinics, home health care agencies, government agencies, aged care facilities, prisons and schools.
