More doctors’ offices are letting patients choose who to see for primary care, a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant. While these professionals all are qualified to perform physical exams and prescribe medications, they complete training programs that vary in length and can emphasize different skills.

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The Noctor will see you now. God bless us all.
There is no comparison in the training that a PA or NP receives compared to a doctor. The article really dumbs things down. Physicians are required to have 4 years of college which usually involves a science major. In order to even consider getting into medical school they must be in the top 10 percent of their class and top 10 percent on their MCAT's. Once in medical school they take much more rigorous basic science classes which reguire on average 14 to 18 hours per day of commitment. The last two years involve working 80 hours per week in an outpatient setting. This is followed by three years of residency working 80 to 100 hours a week taking care of very sick patients along with out patient clinic duties. The doctor is also required to sleep in house every third or 4 th night.
Most NP's are now skipping the clinical tract and going straight to the one year post college training. Both NP's and PA's have no where near the amount of hours of clinical training as a physician.
Massachusettes continues to be the leader in dumbing down health care and the citizens need to realize that as is the case with anyting. You usually get what you pay for!!!!
What's the data for physician assistants? How many in massachusetts? Median annual pay? Job growth?
These graphics are wrong???? We have 800,000 active medical doctors in the USA. Why is the GLOBE saying that we have 600,000 MD's??? Can you check this out? Embarrassing for the paper of record or explain what people are missing????
Obamacare promises the 43million new enrollees everything but a real doctor, because, simply, there will not be enough doctors to go around. Obama would never let the reality of implementation interfere with his legacy socialistic "fundamental transformation" of our society. So with classic social engneering, you will have "Physician Extenders" telling you to call them "Doctor" and hoping their inexperience won't kill your mom.