Medical anthropology and the physician assistant profession.

Medical anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that investigates how culture influences people's ideas and behaviors regarding health and illness. Medical anthropology contributes to the understanding of how and why health systems operate the way they do, how different people understand and interact with these systems and cultural practices, and what assets people use and challenges they may encounter when constructing perceptions of their own health conditions. The goal of this article is to highlight the methodological tools and analytical insights that medical anthropology offers to the study of physician assistants (PAs).

Caring for the disadvantaged: the role of physician assistants.

Objective: We investigated community health centers (CHCs) and the roles of physician assistants (PAs) within them. Our goals were to broadly describe PA practice characteristics within CHCs, to explore why PAs work in CHCs, and to understand patient perspectives of PAs.

Methods: We evaluated 10 CHCs in Texas (5 urban and 5 rural), using an ethnographic approach to examine attitudes and beliefs of PAs, medical staff, and patients.

The role of physician assistants in rural health care: a systematic review of the literature.

Purpose: A literature review was performed to assess the role of physician assistants (PAs) in rural health care. Four categories were examined: scope of practice, physician perceptions, community perceptions, and retention/recruitment.

Methods: A search of the literature from 1974 to 2008 was undertaken by probing the electronic bibliographic databases of English language literature.

Retention of physician assistants in rural health clinics.

Context: Improvement of rural health care access has been a guiding principle of federal and state policy regarding physician assistants (PAs).

Purpose: To determine the factors that influence autonomous rural PAs (who work less than 8 hours per week with their supervising physician) to remain in remote locations.

Methods: A qualitative exploratory study was undertaken in 8 rural Texas towns, including direct observation of clinics, semi-structured interviews with PAs, and focus groups with community residents.