The changing demands on the health sectors in lowand middle-income countries especially sub-Saharan African countries continue to challenge efforts to address critical shortages of the health workforce. Addressing these challenges have led to the evolution of “non-physician clinicians” (NPCs), that assume some physician roles and thus mitigate the continuing shortage of doctors in these countri...

Many countries have health-care providers who are not trained as physicians but who take on many of the diagnostic and clinical functions of medical doctors. We identified non-physician clinicians (NPCs) in 25 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, although their roles varied widely between countries. In nine countries, numbers of NPCs equalled or exceeded numbers of physicians. In general NPCs...

Health workforce shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa are widely recognized, particularly of physicians, leading the training and deployment of Non-physician clinicians (NPCs). The paper by Eyal et al provides interesting and legitimate viewpoints on evolving role of physicians in context of decisive increase of NPCss in Sub-Saharan Africa. Certainly, in short or mid-term, NPCs will continue to be a...

A decade ago, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 24% of the global disease burden but was served by only 4% of the global health workforce. The chronic shortage of medical doctors has led other health professionals especially nurses to perform the role of healthcare providers. These health workers have been variously named clinical officers, health officers, physician assistants, nurse practition...

BACKGROUND Attracting physicians to rural areas has been a long-standing challenge in India. Government efforts to address the shortage of rural physicians include posting non-physician clinicians (NPCs) at primary health centers (PHCs) in select areas. Performance assessments of NPCs have typically focused on the technical quality of their care with little attention to the perspectives of pati...

Nonphysician clinicians (NPCs) are becoming increasingly prominent as health care providers. This study examines 10 such disciplines: nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), nurse-midwives, chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, optometrists, podiatrists, nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists. The aggregate number of NPCs graduating annually in these 10 discipli...

This commentary follows up on an editorial by Eyal and colleagues in which these authors discuss the implications of the emergence of non-physician clinicians (NPCs) on the health labour market for the education of medical doctors. We generally agree with those authors and we want to stress the importance of clarifying the terminology to describe these practitioners and of defining more formall...

Recent proposals for re-defining the roles Africa’s health workforce are a continuation of the discussions that have been held since colonial times. The proposals have centred on basing the continent’s healthcare delivery on non-physician clinicians (NPCs) who can be quickly trained and widely distributed to treat majority of the common diseases. Whilst seemingly logical, the success of these p...

As Eyal et al put forth in their piece, Non-physician Clinicians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Evolving Role of Physicians, task-shifting across sub-Saharan Africa through non-physician clinicians (NPCs) has led to an improvement in access to health services in the context of physician-shortages. Here, we offer a commentary to the piece by Eyal et al, concurring that physician’s roles should ev...

As Eyal et al put forth in their piece, Non-physician Clinicians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Evolving Role of Physicians, task-shifting across sub-Saharan Africa through non-physician clinicians (NPCs) has led to an improvement in access to health services in the context of physician-shortages. Here, we offer a commentary to the piece by Eyal et al, concurring that physician's roles should ev...