Letter: Physician associates have expert capabilities

Clearly Carol White has no idea regarding the training or capabilities of a physician assistant (now called “physician associate”) (“SB1 makes abortion more dangerous,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 26).

PAs are trained in the medical model and the accelerated schooling is done at a medical school, often by the same instructors and with the same course material as physicians — unlike nurse practitioners (NPs), whose training is done at a nursing school with additional certifications available through online courses.

While it’s true that NPs tend to gravitate more toward women’s health specialties, I would argue that an experienced physician assistant working in women’s health would be equally, if not more, capable due to their broad-based medical training.

To suggest that a PA is inferior in training or capability to an APNP is not only inaccurate, but likely the opposite from the truth. By the way, a D&C is the same as a suction abortion.

Tim Gedney

Hawaii Kai

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