Physician Assistants role in ER?

What is the role of physician assistants in the ER?

• How would you describe your job role as a PA in the ER? Are you part of the trauma team, or are you assigned to the more humdrum cases, for lack of a better word?

• Answer:

  Depends on where you are. PA's can be trained to deal with acute emergencies via Physician Assistant residencies. These programs teach PAs to do many invasive emergency procedures. In practice, it may depend on where you work. Some areas may see a lot of blunt force trauma where you will generally perform neurological exams and order various medical imaging. Some areas might see puncture trauma (gunshot wounds) and the PA could be supervised by both the ER physician and the Trauma surgeon. On the TV show Trauma: Life in the ER there was an ER PA who initially saw a gunshot wound patient in the capacity of emergency medicine and later she went to the OR with the patient as part of the trauma surgical team. One benefit of working as a PA is that you can practice in multiple specialties at hospitals.