Kirtland celebrates medical workers with Physician Assistants Week

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Scott Carbaugh and 1st Lt. Jacqueline Pospisal
  • 377th Medical Group
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Physician Assistants Week kicks off Oct. 6, with the aim of increasing awareness of the profession and celebrating America's more than 100,000 clinically practicing PAs.

The Air Force has about 400 PAs assigned to medical groups, deployed locations and specialized duties. At Kirtland, there are five PAs serving at the 377th Medical Group: three in family health, one in the personnel reliability program and one in flight medicine.

"Physician assistants are an integral part of the Air Force and are indispensable in caring for our beneficiaries," said Lt. Col. Lauren Wolf, chief of medical staff in the 377th Medical Group.

The profession was created to improve and expand healthcare in the United States due to a shortage of primary care providers. A PA is a nationally certified and state-licensed medical professional that practices medicine across a wide spectrum of medical disciplines in collaboration with physicians and other providers. PAs are educated and trained through a 26-month - or three academic years - master's degree program which requires the same prerequisite courses as medical school.

Most schools will require students to have approximately three years of healthcare training and experience prior to PA school. PAs then complete more than 2,000 hours in clinical rotations covering family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, dermatology, emergency medicine and psychiatry, in addition to several elective rotations.

Upon program completion, PAs graduating from an accredited program must pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam and obtain state licensure. They can then practice and prescribe medication in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Like physicians, they must complete continuing medical education every two years and pass a written exam every 10 years.

A PA's responsibilities can include, but are not limited to, taking medical histories, conducting physical exams, diagnosing and treating illnesses and injuries, ordering and interpreting tests, conducting medical procedures such as joint injections and biopsies, developing treatment plans and counseling on preventive care, assisting in surgeries, writing prescriptions and conducting rounds in hospitals and other treatment facilities.

"This valuable experience and versatility has helped the PA profession blossom into a profession ripe with leadership potential and opportunity," Wolf said.

PAs enter the Air Force in one of three ways: a direct commission after finishing PA school and completion certification, through the Health Profession Scholarship Program or via the Inter-service Physician Assistant Program in San Antonio, Texas. New PAs will begin their career in the Air Force by working as a primary care provider in family health. Following several years of experience, they can apply for fellowship training in a variety of specialties.   

Outside of more conventional clinical medicine, PAs also work with Air Force special operations, serve as White House medical staff and perform inspections at the Air Force and MAJCOM levels. PAs serve as medical officers Air Force recruiters among many other "outside the box" duties. PAs are also one of the most deployed medical officers, serving every level of combat from the small forward operating base near the front lines all the way to the large theater hospitals.

For more information about physician assistants, or to shadow a Kirtland PA, contact 1st Lt. Jacqueline Pospisal at jacqueline.pospisal.1@us.af.mil.