Path to a Profession: How a Physician Assistant Becomes a Physician Assistant.

This pilot study, through the application of phenomenological methodology, considered the physician assistant (PA) profession as a "lived experience" in an attempt to understand how these medical practitioners end up on the PA path and what keeps them there. Additionally, the researchers focused on understanding why specific individuals gravitate towards the PA education option. Major themes that developed during the interviews with eight PAs included personal unfamiliarity with the PA profession during the first two decades of life, the decision to pursue PA training while in undergraduate studies, assuming roles often considered MD/DO specific and the subsequent patient confusion with the difference between a PA and an MD/DO, and significant work satisfaction resulting in the lack of desire to change profession.