Physician assistantって？
最近physician assistant を目指す学生さんと話すことがあったので、ついでに少しつっこんでリサーチ。NP(ナースプラクティショナー)と似たような役割を果たすPA。患者さんを、診察、診断し薬も出す。手術のアシストもするようです。医師の指示のもとに行うということだそう。だいたい2年半ほど学校にいくそうな。’Physican's’ assistantではなくあくまで自律性を持って医療を行なっていく存在。
I had a chance to talk to a student who wants to be a physician assistant. I had never met someone like him, so I did small research about them by myself too. It seems like there is some similarity between NPs and PAs. They assess, diagnose and prescribe medications like NPs. However, it is under the supervision of physicians. They go to school for about 2 and a half years. This is important. They are not physicians' assistant, but they practice medicine by autonomy.
NPとの違いはまず、分野に分かれないこと。NPはfamily, pediatric, psyciatric など分野に分かれてそれに特化します。PAはgeneral medicineを勉強するとのこと。臨床でのトレーニングも2000時間ほど必要。(ちなみにNPは500から1500時間だそう) あと、こんな記述も。
PA is trained to practice medicine.
NP is trained in advanced practice of nursing.
つまりはNPはあくまでも看護師としての延長線上にあるということみたい。(私なりの解釈)でも線引きって難しい。PAもNPも医療費削減と医師不足への打開策としては評価されている様子。
The big difference between NPs and PAs that PAs don't have specialties like NPs. PAs students study general medicine. They need 2000 hours of clinical training before getting their foot into the clinical settings. ( NPs need from 500 to 1500 hours)
I also found these statements.
'PA is trained to practice medicine, NP is trained in advanced practice of nursing.'
For me, it's hard to make a line. Both PAs and NPs plays a huge role as one of solutions to decrease medical costs and cover the shortage of physician.
日本でも医師不足などの解消のために増えてくるのかな？NPもカリキュラムとしてはあるけど、国家免許ではないし実際にはうまいこと動いていないなんて話も聞く。こっちで見てると本当にいろんな業種の人がいて医療現場がそのコラボレーションの中で動いているのがよく見える。互いの役割とどの範囲で動けるのかはよく理解する必要はあるけど、(アメリカ看護師国家試験でもそのあたりはよく問題にでました。)しっかりdelegationしていくことで、それぞれの仕事と役割に集中できてよりよい医療を提供できる気もする。PAさんを知ることは、新たなアメリカ医療の学びの場でした。
PAs would appear in Japan too since we're also hitting to the same problem. We do have a curriculum to train NP, but it seems like it is not really working by terms of letting them have autonomy. I've seen that we have so many different professionals work in medical settings. I think understanding their scope of practice and delegating as much work as we could make us focus on what we're supposed to do. I had a great learning opportunity for medicine in the US by knowing PA's role.
