I am mentioning this because I care and people should be made aware. While the majority of PAs are perfectly capable, just use common sense and realise that you, as the patient, should always ask questions and even get a 2nd opinion.

I see the PA for sinus problems, things like that but I make an appt with my PMD for anything else. A lot of our patients in our office have never seen their PMD. They only see the PA. That is scary to me. Two examples below:

I just took my friend to an Ambulatory Surgery Center for a procedure for a kidney stone where they put you to sleep and pulverize the stones with sonic waves. She went for prior blood tests and the wonderful bowel cleansing had to be done the night before. She got there and the urologist looked at the x-ray and said "this is not a kidney stone, it’s a shadow" and sent her home. The PA at her PMDs office diagnosed it – this girl has chronic kidney stones and has had them before – so the PA saw the shadow and said "kidney stone". Scary.

Another friend went to her regular dr and ended up seeing the PA who referred her to a neurosurgeon for her neck. This girl has numerous serious problems and her shoulder and arm were very painful, numb, etc. She had and MRI and x-rays done. She sat for 4 hrs and ended up seeing the neuro surgeon’s PA who told her she saw nothing serious on the x-rays and that HER neck was 100 xs worse than my friends. She gave her a script for physical therapy for 6 weeks and told her to come back and see another dr in the practice after that. My friend called her regular dr who said his PA should never have referred her to that dr. He got her an appt with someone else, put her in a cervical collar until then and said under no circumstances go to PT as they could do serious damage as she has 3 ruptured discs all pressing on the spinal column. The neurosurgeon did call her himself and apologize for the wait that day and told her the same thing. She said "well that is not what your PA told me" and he just apologized for that also.

Scary, scary, scary. Also, if you see the PA – why do you have to pay a full copay? You aren’t seeing the real doctor.

You, as the patient, have the right to question your doctor on anything. Don’t let anyone pressure you into something you are not sure of. Seek a second opinion. That is your right. While most PAs are very knowledgeable, they ARE NOT doctors and their findings should be reviewed with the doctor prior to making any surgical decisions, etc.
I did have this in the medical section with no response other than an idiot answer, probably from one of the PAs I was talking about. ha

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