Should the position of Physician Assistant be renamed to Physician Associate? Why or why not?

I am helping to build a brand new chain of Urgent Care Centers in Brooklyn where we frequently hire and work with medical professionals, which may give me some perspective on this point.Typically, an Associate is on a track to advance up a structured corporate hierarchy, eventually to the roll of Partner in a Law or Financial Firm. Many of the Physicians Assistants I know are upwardly mobile; some are biding their time before medical school, and others have business ambitions. However most practices do not have progressive promotions or scaled job titles as a larger company would. Some private practices have Associate Physicians who might aspire to one day take an ownership stake in the company, so the prefix is not entirely alien to medicine, but you take my point.On the other hand, it is important that patients understand that they are dealing with trained and experienced professionals. Medical Assistants take vitals, review medical histories, give injections, and perform all sorts of other functions which require more skill and discipline than some patients would expect from someone with the title of "Assistant". It is also important that it is understood, both by the staff and the patients, that a PA can act with a degree of autonomy from the physician, both for safety and efficiency purposes. Sometimes possessive titles like Co-Pilot or X Assistant breed on one hand an overly differential attitude on the part of the less experienced employee and an obligation to micromanage by the senior.So frankly, if a new designation was coined, I would do away with the 'Physician' part of the title as well (think Certified Medical Provider, C.M.P.... or something).It is an interesting question, and one I had not thought of before seeing it here.

As a PA living and working in a country that calls them Physician Associates, I can say that the title difference only seems to matter to patients. Amoungst my collegues in the medical field, everyone knows what a PA does and their place in the medical hierarchy. The confusions lies with the patients who usually equate a Physician Assistant to that of a physician's assistant; one who assists a physician with their daily tasks such a getting them coffee, running errands etc.   While the title of Physician Assistant is not optimal, it has become so engrained in U.S. nomenclature that it would be detrimental to the profession to try to change it now. For countries that are just now implementing PA's, I think that going with a title more representative of the duties would be prudent.

I was in the AAPA House of Delegates when this was debated.  In short, Associate better describes our actual role.  However, the time, effort, and money that would be required to make this change would slow down other efforts to continue to improve PA practice.  Therefore the profession seems to have settled on the fact that we generally refer to ourselves as PAs rather than make a change.