Assistant Physician

An assistant physician is defined as any medical school graduate, who has passed the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), BUT not entered into postgraduate residency training program.

Assistant Physician (by MD) is not Physician Assistant (PA, 2-3 years other type medical education) (Assistant Physician video clip)

(1) The U.S. is short by 45k primary care doctors especially in underserved areas. That’s expected to top 125k by next decade.

(2) (Accumulated) about 100-200 U.S. medical graduate, 2354 U.S.-citizen International Medical Graduates (IMGs) and 3725 non-US IMGs (part of them are permanent residents) do not have resident slot until 2015 after main residency match and SOAP program. Do we really have physician shortage?

(3) If all non-matched medical graduate apply to the ‘Assistant Physician’, even though just fill small portion of shortage, it will help a lot for people in need. Then you can say we still have Doc shortage.

(4) If all 2354 US-citizen IMGs who not matched in residency program (0.03% of all licensed physicians or 1% PCPs) have chance to practice as Assistant Physician in primacy care in remote areas, >3 million patient visits (if 25 patient visits/day) will be done. The patients will have more time to discuss your case with Doc.

(5) If additional <3k permanent resident IMG (<0.04% of all licensed physicians) become Assistant Physician, millions additional people will be benefit.

(6) All of these will most likely not affect overall physician workforce, but it will improve patient care in certain levels)

(7) We pay tax to support postgraduate residency training program, but as tax payers (IMGs who passed all USMLE) should have chance to practice medicine in some ways.

(8) Based on USMLE definition, passed USMLE Step 1 & Step 2 (clinical knowledge and clinical skill) presume you have the ability to provide health care under supervision. If passed Step 3, presume you can do unsupervised practice.

(9) Most IMG graduates were well trained and have a language and culture advantages for minorities.

(10) The new position of "assistant physician“ (MO law), who can provide primary care services in medically underserved rural or urban areas, would be supervised on site by a collaborative physician for 30 days. After that, they could treat patients without direct supervision in settings 50 miles away and will be able to prescribe (Schedule III-V) drugs.

(11) This is a decent solution, if you passed USMLE step 1 and 2, and even step 3, and can’t find the resident slot, do practice under supervision.

(12) At least 28 states may (or already) expand physician assistant and nurse practitioner’ role to be your doctor. It is not acceptable for not giving an opportunity to those high talented medical graduates who have medical education, strict clinical training (may don’t have US residency training yet) and passed USMLE, especially for those passed all USMLE steps, to pursue medical practice while we have a large shortage of physicians and expanded the roles of physician assistant and nurses in the health care.