Why physician assistants cannot replace physicians | Letters

Sammy Chan, a junior doctor, talks about her work fulfilling some specific roles for respiratory patients in hospitals (‘I’m not a doctor’: the role junior doctors play in the NHS, January 18). Physician assistants have been successfully performing a number of these types of roles for more than a decade: specific tasks for specific types of patients, under direct supervision.

What I feel much less comfortable with is the sudden appearance of junior doctors in GP practices, fulfilling the de facto role of GPs. By this I mean fully seeing, diagnosing, examining and treating undifferentiated patients: patients with a new and unknown diagnosis, which could be anything. General practitioners train for at least 10 years to be able to do this safely. I am extremely disturbed that this new cadre, as excellent as they may be, has to carry out this task with only two years of training.
Dr. Jack Pickard
London

BMA’s concerns about expanded roles in medicine are unwarranted (doctors are not doctors and should not be regulated as such, says BMA, January 18). As a former healthcare professions lecturer, I recall that historical concerns about unregulated role creep across professional boundaries led physicians and other professions associated with medicine to come together in the first place to establish and define the physician associate role. create professional standards. and control them.

The health professionals who take on these roles are already registered by statutory bodies. In terms of patient awareness of who does what, there is a standard requirement to identify and explain roles, and anyone making patient interventions, whether new students or mature practitioners, has an obligation and a degree of professional proud to introduce himself.
Jonathan Hauxwell
Crosshills, North Yorkshire

A national survey by the Doctors’ Association UK found significant concerns about the role of physician assistants. Although they could play a valuable role in assisting doctors, the integration of their services into the NHS must be carefully balanced against the training needs of doctors in training and the overall safety of patients.
Dr. Matt Kneale
Co-chair of the Doctors’ Association UK