PAs and the practice of genetic medicine

March 19, 2009

Concerted, visionary efforts by the PA profession’s formal leadership and its rank-and-file members have placed physician assistants in a position of prominence with respect to the integration of genetics into education and practice. Those efforts—sustained during the past half-dozen years by individual PAs and by the entities responsible for education, accreditation, and certification— have begun to address the systemic challenges inherent in the rapid growth of human genetics and genomics. Among those challenges are the dearth of formally trained specialists in genetics and the need for all health professionals to assume shared responsibility for providing care that increasingly is informed by genetic perspectives and emerging genetic technology. (JAAPA)