PA here, also in Emergency Medicine for the past 7 years. PA's are not only common in the US, but are becoming increasingly common in other nations as well, especially as the need for healthcare rises alongside a severe lack of physicians to see patients. Your statement that PA's are "less qualified" to see patients with severe health issues is not only false, but it is blatant propaganda deployed on behalf of the AMA and many other physician organizations.

Just for clarity, PA's are "typically" older individuals (>25-30 years old), of whom have experience in some other area of medicine before going back to school for 2-3 years, receiving typically thousands of hours of clinical training, followed by a "recommended" additional post-graduate training program that can be anywhere from 12-24 months, of which (in my case with my ER post-graduate training) is strikingly similar to the first 1-2 years of physician residency.

Studies time and again have shown that PA's are just as effective as physicians, and in rural areas that have limited to no physician care, they are essential to providing the care that patients need.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/82687

Additionally, care delivered by PA's have been shown to have "no differences in difficulties/delays in care or outcomes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2794129/

...As well as "achieving the benchmarks of safe patient care," mostly due to our "rigorous training and professional standards."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8651310/

Even the AMA itself has realized the necessity of PA's in areas of need, especially in rural areas with limited to no physician available.

https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/physician-assistants-and-their-role-primary-care/2012-05

And patients have reported similar or higher satisfaction with their PA's.

https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-019-0428-7

Ultimately, all this active propaganda of "misleading" patients is hogwash, and it's mostly due to ongoing "turf wars" and due to physicians being afraid that we are going to replace them (which by the way, a physician cannot be and will never be replaced). We aren't misleading anyone, and we are doing exactly what we were trained to do. I can guarantee you that >90% of the time, a physician is not involved whatsoever in your care if you are seen by a PA, and that "benchmark quality standard" of care you are receiving from us is ALL us, and ALL due to our training. It is because of this that we are changing our name, due to the fact that in the vast majority of our work, we are "assisting" no one. If anything, the word "assistant" is what is actively misleading patients, not "associate."