Physician Assistant Exam For Dummies

Barry Schoenborn, Richard Snyder

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118237601
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Manuali di studio
• Subtopic: Guide di studio

The easy way to score high on the PANCE and PANRE

Physician Assistant Exam For Dummies, Premier Edition offers test-taking strategies for passing both the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) and the Physician Assistant National Recertifying Exam (PANRE). It also offers information on becoming a certified Physician Assistant (PA) and the potential positions within this in-demand career field.

Physician Assistant Exam For Dummies provides you with the information you need to ace this demanding exam and begin your career in one of the fastest growing segments of healthcare.

• Offers an overview of test organization and scoring
• Content review with practice tests for each section of the exam
• Five full-length practice tests
• An interactive CD includes 3 of the 5 practice tests?including one PANRE?a digital slide slow featuring 20 plus images, and more than 300 flashcards covering the 13 official categories of the PANCE and PANRE

Physician Assistant Exam For Dummies, Premier Edition serves as a valuable, must-have resource, desk reference, and study guide for those preparing for either the PANCE or the PANRE.

CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.

Part I

Scratching the Surface of the PANCE and PANRE

In this part . . .

Part I is an overview of the PANCE and PANRE. Chapter 1 describes steps to becoming a physician assistant and the importance of the exams. Chapter 2 gives you details about the process of preparing for and taking the test. It includes the basic techniques for succeeding with test questions.

Chapter 1

Becoming a Physician Assistant

In This Chapter

Going from student to physician assistant

Preparing for the PANCE or PANRE

Physician assistants have been around since the 1960s. Dr. Charles Hudson suggested the idea to the American Medical Association in 1961. Then Dr. Eugene Stead Jr. of the Duke University Medical Center assembled a class made up of U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen and applied techniques he had learned about fast-tracking doctors in World War II. The first class graduated in 1967.

To become a physician assistant today, you have to take and pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE). And to continue working in the field, you have to be recertified every 6 years by taking and passing the Physician Assistant National Recertifying Examination (PANRE). (Starting in 2014, recertification will be required every 10 years.) These tests are tough — they’re lengthy and have challenging questions. But if you prepare well, you’ll have a surprisingly easy time, and we’re confident that you’ll rise to the challenge.

This chapter gives you a quick overview of what a physician assistant does. It also outlines the PANCE and PANRE.

Knowing What to Expect as a PA

A physician assistant (PA) is a well-educated healthcare professional who is nationally certified and licensed by the state in which he or she practices. The PA practices medicine under the supervision of a physician. A physician assistant can have a large degree of autonomy, depending on his or her experience and the doctor’s willingness to delegate.

PAs prevent, diagnose, and treat illness and injury by providing many healthcare services, including the following:

Conducting physical exams

Ordering and interpreting tests

Counseling people on preventive healthcare

Assisting in surgery

Writing prescriptions

If you see the letters PA after a person’s name, that means physician assistant.

In this section, we discuss PA education programs, steps to take after you receive your certification, and your job prospects as a PA.

Training to become a PA

To become a PA, you must pass the PANCE. But first, you need to get an education through an accredited PA program. Currently, the United States has more than 160 such programs. The program at Duke University in North Carolina is probably best known because the nation’s first PAs were trained at and graduated from Duke.

PA training at the graduate level takes 2 to 3 years and involves a combination of classroom studies and clinical rotations. Admissions departments are selective, and for many programs, your GRE score must be relatively high. So why do we say this? It’s a confidence builder. If you survived PA education and training, you’re more than capable of acing the PANCE!

What you do when you’re a PA

After you’re certified as a physician assistant, you have to fulfill some legal requirements, keep up with medical developments, and celebrate your profession, all the while treating patients. Here’s a quick list of things to do:

Get a license.

Get a job as a physician assistant and put all your training to good use caring for patients.

Get professional liability insurance.

Register with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), as needed.

If you’re in the United States, join the American Academy of Physician Assistants (www.aapa.org).

Earn and report 100 hours of continuing medical education (CME) hours every 2 years. You can obtain CME hours by attending seminars, journal reading, and online study. Many PAs choose to attend a conference to obtain most or all of their CME credits.

Celebrate National Physician Assistant Week on October 6 through October 12. October 6 is the day the first PA class graduated at Duke University and just happens to be the birthday of Dr. Eugene Stead, creator of the PA program.

Reregister your certificate with NCCPA (National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants) every 2 years.

Take the PANRE after 6 years (or 10 years starting in 2014).

Employers often pay for the PA’s professional liability insurance, registration fees with the DEA, state licensing fees, and credentialing fees.

Sizing up your prospects

So after you’ve gone through years of training and...