The public demand for higher quality and greater accountability in health care has been growing steadily over the last several years, and various health care professions are responding in different ways. To address that issue within the PA profession, the four national PA organizations featured above joined together to define PA competencies, a critical starting point to identify opportunities for improvement in the development and assessment of those competencies.

The true value of this document, and of the competencies it describes, will be in how these are incorporated into the practice, training, and continuing education and evaluation of PAs. Our four organizations are exploring opportunities to refine and retool our programs to reflect these competencies. More importantly, all PAs can use the Competencies for the PA Profession document to evaluate their individual strengths and opportunities for personal growth, to help guide their choice of future CME and other training activities, and ultimately to become ever better clinicians.

> Click here to view and print Competencies for the Physician Assistant Profession.

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