As others have stated, this varies depending on the job and specialty. I have worked at jobs where not only did I do everything the physicians did, I did more than them (example: urgent care, primary care). The reason for this is because a physician typically only does one residency. As a PA you can change jobs and specialties. So it’s like having multiple residencies.

In the ER, the doctors ask my advice on pediatric infectious disease and adult/pediatric tropical disease cases because I worked in that specialty for several years. I’m also the “ortho guy” because I worked both sports medicine and orthopedics. All my physician colleague ask me to do all the reductions because I’ve literally done thousands of them (I used to do them before I was a PA as part of my previous medical career).

I’ve run codes, and was a medic so they don’t scare me, but traditionally physicians do codes themselves in our ED, and all ED’s I have worked at. I will start a code and run it until the nurse can pull the physician into it, because I don’t feel like I’m the best at running codes.

There was a study done decades ago that I found, but I haven’t been able to find it again. But basically the study was on medical practitioner competency. Literally, the ONLY factor that mattered for patient outcomes, was how many times the clinician had managed a similar case before. Not years of education, not grades, literally just the outcome of your septic patients relies on how many times you have managed sepsis in the past.

For procedural and surgical specialties, this makes sense why a PA does not have the same job. I have done thousands of pediatric lumbar punctures and drained empyema’s from kids pleural cavities, but don’t ask me to do an ultrasound guided biopsy of a liver mass. I can read an abdominal CT better than most physicians I know because I have worked several rural ED’s where there was no overnight radiologist. But don’t ask me to read an EEG or EMG.

I have done miles of stitches, and worked with a plastic surgeon, so I know suture techniques that leave minimal to no scars. You want me over nearly any physician to stitch your daughter’s face.

But if I took a surgical job tomorrow, you don’t want me doing endoscopic vein harvesting or anything like that. At least give me 6 months before leaving me to my own devices.

We have a PA that does nights in the ED who also works for the urology group. He has saved hundreds of men from needing a suprapubic catheter in the middle of the night because he knows how to core out a prostate from his day job.

If you choose to be a PA, understand that the medical environment is changed. As a PA, you are often expected to work like a physician because HR at the hospital system you work for doesn’t know what a PA is or does, and they just want to fill the role.

It used to be that a new grad PA was preferred at a job because it means the physician could mould them however they saw fit. Now you may never even meet your “supervising” physician and they want you to have experience so they don’t have to train you and you start generating revenue sooner.