We were saddened to read Iona Heath's editorial ‘The medical care practitioner: Newspeak and the duping of the public’.1
Iona has failed to look at the evidence base concerning the physician assistant (PA) role both in the US and the UK. If she had done so she would have found that PAs are both clinically safe, and positively received by patients.2,3 She would have also discovered that the PA role is not particularly a primary care practitioner role. PAs are generic medical practitioners working to assist physicians in all areas of medical practice, not independently of them. Rowley Regis & Tipton PCT was …