About Inter Service Physician Assistant
The actual genesis of the Interservice Physician Assistant as a health profession goes back as early as to 27 July 1775, when both the Army Medical Corps and Medical Department were formed, It was at this time that the Continental Congress established the Army Hospital.
Initially Congress only provided a medical organization of the Army only in time of emergency or war. In q until 1818 this changed when it created a permanent and continuous Medical Department. Over the years specialized coprs were formed for nurses, dentists, veterarians, and others in the medical services. In 1950 The Army Organization Act of 1950 renamed the Medical Department as the Army Medical Service. And in June 1968 the Army Medical Service was redesignated the Army Medical Department.
The Army Medical Department of the U.S. Army, known as the AMEDD, comprises the six medical Special Branches of the Army. It is not a command of the U.S. Army, but was established in July 1775 to coordinate the medical care required by the Continental Army. The AMEDD is led by the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, a lieutenant general. The AMEDD is found in all three components of the Army, namely the Active Army, the U.S. Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard. Headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas - which hosts the AMEDD Center and School - equal numbers of AMEDD senior leaders can be found in Washington D.C., divided between the Pentagon and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
At one time The Medical Corps (MC) consisted entirely of commissioned medical officers who are physicians - including holders of the Doctor of Medicine degree and the Doctor of Osteopathic medicine degree - and have completed at least one year of post-graduate training (internship). AMEDD's regular physicians. Today, members of the MC work around the world at all echelons of the Army and Physicians Assistants serve as part of these teams taking medical histories, performing physical exams, ordering, reviewing and analyzing laboratory tests, diagnosing and treating illnesses, counselling patients, assisting in surgery, and setting fractures.
The Inter service Physician Assistant are educated as generalists in medicine; all programs emphasize primary care. Although their education and credentialing are based on a primary care foundation, PAs can work in specialty fields, such as cardiovascular surgery, orthopedics, and emergency medicine. The largest proportion opt for the primary care specialty areas of family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology.
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