Assistant Physicians Coming to Missouri

Missouri is planning to allow medical school graduates who have not completed residency to treat patients in underserved parts of the state. Bills that would allow medical school graduates to provide medical care have passed the General Assembly and are awaiting Governor Jay Nixon’s signature. The newly-minted physicians would receive “assistant physician” licenses and would be able to treat patients in collaboration with a licensed physician – much in the way a physician assistant does. However, the new graduates will be able to call themselves “doctor” while physician assistants will not. Now the American Academy of Physician Assistants is up in arms because the arrangement would “jeopardize (physician assistant) practice” and because these insufficiently trained Assistant Physicians might be confused with Physician Assistants. The new doctors will have more schooling than the physician assistants, but will only be required to work with a collaborating physician for one month before they can practice alone. One other important thing to note in the legislation: The collaborating physician maintains full responsibility for all actions of the assistant physician. In other words, if the assistant physician commits malpractice, the supervising physician takes the fall for it. Creative licensing such as this will be a boon to states since each of these extra providers will have to pay significant licensing fees to the states ...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Policy Source Type: blogs