In response to the shortage of primary care physicians and the need for greater intercollaboration among health professionals, dentists with sufficient medical and surgical training are an untapped resource to provide limited preventive primary care (LPPC), such as chairside screening for chronic diseases. The objective of this study was to determine attitudes of Rhode Island dentists toward be...

A hopeful note in the contemporary abortion environment in the United States is the expanding role of advanced practice clinicians--nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurse-midwives--in first trimester abortion provision. A large percentage of primary health care in the U.S. is currently provided by these non-physicians but their involvement in abortion care is promising, especially ...

To understand trends in emergency medicine and interprofessional roles in delivering this care, we analyzed a 10-year period (1995-2004) by provider, patient characteristics, and diagnoses. The focus was on how doctors, physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) share emergency medicine visits. The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey of over 1 billion "weighted" emerg...

INTRODUCTION There is a critical shortage of specialty rheumatology services in Canada. The impact is felt more in rural and northern regions than on urban areas of the country. In response to the need, this study was conducted to compare the satisfaction of referring physicians with rheumatology services through conventional visiting specialty clinics; email consults and regularly scheduled vi...

Medicare payment disproportionately impacts rural physicians compared to urban. For example, 51% of rural physicians, compared to 44% of urban physicians, receive at least 38% of their payments from Medicare.1 Thus, the Medicare physician payment system is of significant rural interest. In this policy brief, we present the effects of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernizatio...

Mounting evidence supports the need for more primary care physicians to care for an expanding, aging, and insured population. The U.S. primary care physician workforce is composed of graduates from both domestic and international medical schools. Trends in training, recruitment, and practice have policy and ethical implications. We used the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile to e...

INTRODUCTION In developed countries, substituting physicians with nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurses (physician substitution) occurs in nursing homes as an answer to the challenges related to the ageing population and the shortage of staff, as well as to guarantee the quality of nursing home care. However, there is great diversity in how physician substitution in nursing homes...

INTRODUCTION A severe healthcare worker shortage in sub-Saharan Africa is inhibiting the expansion of HIV treatment. Task shifting, the transfer of antiretroviral therapy (ART) management and initiation from doctors to nurses and other non-physician clinicians, has been proposed to address this problem. However, many health officials remain wary about implementing task shifting policies due to ...

Physician assistants (PAs) have been used for decades in the Canadian military. Now, PAs are being introduced in various clinical settings to provide patient care for the general population. This article reviews major developments in the PA profession across Canada over the last decade. Nearly 541 PAs are employed in Canada or work for a Canadian agency. Growing evidence demonstrates the positi...

QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY Over the past few years, there has been increasing interest in the question of how couples coordinate their careers and private lives. The aim of this study was to investigate the career arrangements of physicians and their partners according to gender and parenthood status, and to compare dual-physician couples with other types of couples. METHODS Data pertaining to 414...