For more than 30 years, PAs have functioned as members of a healthcare team delivering quality medical care. The PA's duties are determined by physician supervision as defined by law.
PAs practice in virtually every specialty from family medicine to surgery.
The Role of the Physician Assistant PAs deliver a broad spectrum of medical and surgical services to diverse populations in both rural and urban settings throughout the United States. PAs practice in the same settings as physicians, i.e., outpatient facilities, private and public clinics, managed care and other systems, and in rural and urban areas. For example, the PA may be seeing patients in a rural clinic, while the supervising physician is at the hospital or in a central office. State laws do require that the supervising physician be immediately available for consultation, while a PA is seeing patients. A hallmark of physician assistant practice is that PAs practice as part of a team.