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Today's medical field is one of the most rapidly expanding careers in the world. Everyday more and more job openings and expansion jobs are being created. In the past, not enough physicians or doctors existed to care for the growing needs, so a Physician Assistant job was created to help fill in for the poor displacement of doctors. Since people will always need medical care, a PA position would be a good choice for one who wants a secure job with plenty of benefits. As Dan Legro, A.R.N.P and P.N.P, has said, "The medical field is here to stay." (Legro). Job security, the ability to change fields, or areas of concentration, and to advance makes the position of PA interesting and rewarding. The history of the physician has evolved over many years during the beginning of the medical field we have today. The Physician Assistant job was given its title back in the early 1960's. It was created because of the shortage of physicians and very poor distribution of doctors all over.(Career As A PA p.3). This was more true in rural areas and in the inner cities where the poor and sick mainly lived. Another reason why the position of Longabaugh 2 PA was created was because of the return of all the medical corpsman which were all returning home from the Vietnam war and needed jobs. PA's were placed in areas alongside physicians where not enough doctors and physicians were to go around.(www.pahx.org/) In the 1960's when Dr. Eugene Stead realized the poor distribution of doctors and physicians was a major problem, he knew something must be done. So, Dr. Stead put together the first class of physician assistants. (Career As A PA p.3) He was a professor at the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. The first class was taught in 1965, with the selection of Navy corpsmen who had already had plenty of medical training and experience from Vietnam. This created a great boost to the medical field.(Career As A PA p.3) In 1971, the government even started funding for PA programs. The PA programs started growing in popularity all over the nation. From 1970 to 1980, the number of PA programs grew from 12 to 56! In the early 1980's the growth of programs began to slow with a total of 80 programs being available by 1990. By 1998, 110 accredited schools had developed and qualified to graduate PA's. (www.aapa.org/) A Physician Assistant position requires several different types of classes from high school to post- Longabaugh 3 graduate and medical school. During high school, it is important to take english, upper level math classes, speech, chemistry, biology, physics, health, business classes, computer, keyboarding, and a foreign language. A first aid class would also be of g benefit.(WOIS) These are just a few of the classes to help one get a feel for the types of information and education a PA will be exposed to throughout college, medical school, and their career.
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