This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on ISI (2)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Medical Education  • Alert me on articles by topic

Marvin A. McMillen, MD; Paul West, PA-C
Chicago, Ill

Arch Surg. 1999;134:445-447.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

SEVERAL MONTHS ago, a commentary appeared in this journal¹ estimating the dollar replacement value of surgical residents to community teaching hospitals, and comparing the cost of supporting junior faculty with the cost of replacing surgical residents with physician assistants. Some readers may have misinterpreted the commentary as being anti–physician assistant. In fact, the opposite is true. The author is a strong proponent of increasing the physician assistant participation in patient care in teaching hospitals, and creating mechanisms for the simultaneous training of physician assistants alongside surgical residents.

Eighty-three percent of American health care is at community, nonteaching hospitals, yet the graduate medical education of most specialists is structured as if all program graduates will become professors at the nearest medical school. Particularly in surgery, it is common to find high-quality, sophisticated care at community hospitals, which may have decided to "showcase" or emphasize . . . [Full Text of this Article]