The promotion of interest in the role of the physician associate as a potential career opportunity for nurses: an alternative strategy.

Several frameworks are presented for understanding the development of interest in the role of the Physician Associate as a potential career opportunity for nurses. The contribution of professional role identification with nursing, medicine, and amalgamation of the two professions are explored as a basis for career choice. The usefulness of the current mobility model in health careers emphasizing differential vertical and horizontal mobility is contrasted with a classical sociological mobility model. Deficiencies are noted in both professional role identification and mobility models employing horizontal and vertical mobility as a basis for the development of interest in the role of the Physician Associate as a potential career opportunity for nurses. An examination of the factors implicit in the development of the Physician Associate in the emerging nations leads to significant understandings with regard to the development of interest ib assuming some roles in those settings. Such cross cultural considerations make possible an integrated approach for understanding interest development of the Physician Associate. Attention is focused upon interest development as a function of: 1. Individual competencies. 2. Aspirational patterns. 3. The structure of opportunities which are made available, as well as upon specific career strategies. Examination of these factors indicates that a major deterrent to career development by nurses in the role of Physician Associate is the pervasive psycho-sexual deference associated with current nursing practice. Attention to this factor in both training and practice settings is imperative in order to facilitate role alteration by nurses. THE ROLE of the physician associate has received considerable worldwide attention in the past few years in response to the current crisis in health care delivery. There are several diverse frameworks for understanding the development of interest in this new role by members of the nursing profession. One major approach has been to view the development of interest in the role of the physician associate as a function of professional role identification. A second approach holds that this development is a function of career mobility patterns. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to analyze the relative merits of each of these approaches and offer some viable alternatives for the future selection of this career opportunity by nurses. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTEREST IN THE PHYSICIAN ASSOCIATE BY NURSES AS A FUNCTION OF PROFESSIONAL ROLE IDENTIFICATION A review of the extensive literature related to the concept of the physician associate indicates that the evolution of interest in this role is often portrayed as a complex interaction of a large number of significant variables related to professional role identification. These can be subdivided into three major categories: (1) Those factors which suggest the development of interest in the physician associate occur as a function of an expansion of the profession of nursing.