BACKGROUND: Physician assistants are a profession that has adapted to the growing needs of the health care system. With an increasing shortage of doctors compared to patients, the flexibility of PAs has kept the profession in high demand and created a growing number of jobs in surgical specialties. Orthopedics is the third largest specialty to employ PAs but very little is known about the day to day life of these providers.
LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS: This thesis contains a comprehensive literature review, composed largely of small cross-sectional studies, which summarizes the current research on job satisfaction and burnout in PAs. The literature review highlights that burnout is dependent on the medical specialty and is different from that of a physician. It also shows that there is greater burnout among oncology and emergency medicine PAs. There is presently a lack of literature on the burnout rates of orthopedic PAs, as well as the retention rates and the autonomy of these Pas within this specialty.
PROPOSED PROJECT: This thesis proposes a cross-sectional study to identify the demographics, burnout, retention, and autonomy of orthopedic PAs compared to the general PA population.
CONCLUSION: The study will match an orthopedic physician assistant and two general population PAs. The burnout, retention, and autonomy data will be compared and analyzed using a chi-square test to reveal correlations and differences. Significance: A provider who is burned out not only delivers sub-standard care but impacts the overall mental health of the provider and the patients are less likely to comply with their treatment plan if their provider suffers from professional burnout. In addition, high turnover of PAs is costly to the healthcare system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/38593 |
| Date | 09 October 2019 |
| Creators | Chinnaswamy, Ellyssa |
| Contributors | Reffel, Angela, Weinstein, John |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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