Preserving 50 Years of Physician Assistant History.

Physician assistants (PAs) have been making history for 50 years. For the past 15 years, the PA History (PAHx) Society has been working to make sure this history is not lost. The Society began in 2002 as a membership organization based at Duke University and since 2011 has been a supporting organization of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). Highly visible and active in the PA community, the Society encourages all PAs to understand their professional history and embrace it as a part of their professional identity. The Society, through the work of its board of trustees, historians, and staff, tells the story of the collective efforts of physicians, PAs, nurses, lawyers, educators, and policy makers to create a human innovation that has changed how medicine is practiced in the United States and, more recently, in other countries. The Society provides PA faculty and students access to a growing collection of historically relevant and primary source materials that can be used for educational, research, and literary purposes.

PAs: Public awareness and the popular media.

From the very beginning, popular media has played an essential role in driving public awareness and recognition of physician assistants (PAs) as major contributors to healthcare. But for PAs, popular media can be a double-edged sword. Over time, the roles of PAs have evolved from bit players to leading characters on television medical dramas. Even so, on some occasions, the roles of PAs have been marginalized and misrepresented. In the future, the PA profession will need to remain vigilant about how PAs are portrayed in the popular media and must learn how to use the full benefit of the media to promote the profession's diversity, flexibility, collegiality, and civic-mindedness.

Accommodating a new medical profession: the history of physician assistant regulatory legislation in North Carolina.

The first physician assistant program in the United States was at Duke University Medical Center. This program served as a model for other institutions to begin similar educational programs, and the profession has quickly become a major source of medical services throughout the country. Less well-known is the role of Duke University and North Carolina in the development of a unique regulatory system, which also became a national model. This system has been effective in protecting the public and the patient, and has had the flexibility to adapt to changing medical practice and changing standards. The process by which this regulatory system was developed was unique, and its unique characteristics are felt to have been a significant factor in its success. Duplication of these characteristics is recommended for those who wish to incorporate new medical occupations into the larger medical community.