Physician assistants occupy an interesting grey area somewhere beteween nurses and doctors themselves. They have the power to both diagnose and prescribe, but they always work under the supervision of a fully qualified doctor (who may or may not be actually on the site at the time). The profession is expected to grow much faster than the average (according to the BLS) both because of the expected expansion of the health care industry and the pressure to reduce costs. The latter is really driven by the recognition that 95% of treatments really do not need someone trained for nearly a decade to diagnose or treat them. Such expertise will do well being saved for that much smaller number of problems that really need the extra knowledge.

That said, the educational qualifications appear almost bizarre. Nearly all entrants into a training programs will already have a full four year college degree. But then the college degree awarded can range from an Associate’s all the way to a Master’s. I have a feeling that this is because it is all quite new, and the 135 different schools offering these college degrees range from community colleges all the way to programs attatched to medical schools and research hospitals. The training might be very similar, but not everywhere is allowed to award a Master’s (nor even a Bachelor’s) degree. It’s also worth noting that this is an area of training where the military provide a very good program.

Our EQSQ personality tests? It’s medicine, dealing day to day with patients in a very similar manner to senior and specialist nurses, so empathy or the female brain attributes are definitely needed. It’s also like a half-way house to being a doctor, and as we know they need to have very high systemizing abilities. So I think we’d probably be looking at, recommending this, to those who are balanced brain types by our personality tests.