Push for additional certification splits physician assistant group
From Modern Healthcare. Full article here.
A proposal by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants to add a new specialty section to its mandatory recertification exams has resulted in a dispute between the Commission and the American Academy of Physician Assistants, a national professional society for PAs, writes Elizabeth Whitman at Modern Healthcare. The Academy, which generally opposes recertification exams, has begun the process of creating a new organization to certify physician assistants.
The proposed specialty testing would be added to the Physician Assistant National Recertifying Exam, which physician assistants in all 50 states are required to take every 10 years, in order to renew their certification. Whitman writes that the new specialty test reflects changes in the field, as most physician assistants spend their careers practicing in two or three areas of medicine.