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Physician Assts Workers Comp Espanol

What is a Physician Assistant?

OAD Orthopaedics employs certified physician assistants (PAs) who work under the direct supervision of the practice’s physicians. These PAs are highly trained licensed health care professionals with bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees in physician assistant studies. PAs typically have experienced thousands of hours of direct patient care experience, must pass a national certification exam developed by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) in conjunction with the National Board of Medical Examiners, and similar to OAD Orthopaedics’ physicians and nurses, are licensed by the State of Illinois.

As a result of PAs’ intense clinical medicine, research, and surgical training, PAs can be found working in all the medical fields and specialties, such as orthopaedics. OAD Orthopaedics’ PAs participate in patient care in both the clinical office and hospital settings with duties including the following:

  • Physical examinations, orthopaedic evaluations
  • Preoperative exams, consultations and histories
  • Injections
  • Casting
  • Development of patients’ treatment plans with physicians
  • Assistance with wound closures, dressings and hardware insertions
  • In-patient hospital visits/“hospital rounds”
  • Postoperative care

Physician Assistants Play Vital Role in Orthopaedics

PAs’ surgical responsibilities are the most critical aspect of their collaboration with OAD Orthopaedics’ surgeons. The practice’s skilled assistants are familiar with the surgeons’ techniques, instrumentation, and preferences, resulting in a highly coordinated physician-directed, consultative level of care.

The OAD Orthopaedics’ PAs, however, do not make surgical incisions, finalize hardware, determine prosthesis placement, or close deep layers of incisions.

The cohesive physician-PA team approach to orthopaedics enhances the quality and delivery of specialized care, treatment, and services available to patients. This systematic collaboration provides the efficiency and consistency in health care that patients deserve and value.

“Fast Facts” from the American Academy
of Physician Assistants

  • PA programs typically require a bachelor’s degree and 4 years of health care experience prior to admission.
  • Accredited PA programs average 111 weeks of instruction including, but not limited to, pharmacology, clinical medicine, laboratory science, anatomy and physiology, pathology, medical ethics and more than 2000 hours of clinical rotations.
  • Practicing PAs must pass a national certification exam open only to accredited PA program graduates, obtain individual state licenses, complete at least 100 hours of continuing medical education every 2 years, and pass a recertification exam every 6 years.
  • Forty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and Guam have enacted laws that authorize PA prescription privileges.
  • While all programs recognize the completion of the professional component of PA education with a certificate of completion, more than half of the 135 nationally accredited programs award an applicable master’s degree.
  • The American Academy of Physician Assistants estimates there were 58,665 people in clinical practice as PAs at the beginning of 2006.
  • Dr. Eugene Stead of the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina put together the first class of PAs in 1965.

TOP OF PAGE

OAD Orthopaedics'
team of Certified Physician Assistants

C. Kwong
Christopher Kwong,
M.S., PA-C

S. McCormick
Shannon McCormick,
M.M.S., PA-C

K. Manning
Laurie Morgan,
M.S., PA-C

S. McCormick
Daniel O'Donnell,
M.P.A.S., PA-C

S. McCormick
Susan Reed,
M.M.S., PA-C

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ©2005 OAD Orthopaedics, Ltd.