Looking into tomorrow. Health workforce issues confronting physician assistants.

An important issue facing the physician assistant (PA) profession is how it can achieve a balance between supply of, and demand for, the services that PAs provide in the health workforce of the future. Recently, there has been debate and discussion about the implications of the recent expansion of the supply of PAs. In this article, we review and discuss (1) workforce data on physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners and (2) projections of the number of these clinicians who will be trained in the future. We then analyze (1) data that describe the past 11 years of PA education and (2) data that address the experience of recent graduates of PA education programs who have sought employment. Some evidence suggests that, although demand has kept pace with expanding supply, a perception clearly exists that the PA job market may be tightening in some regions of the United States.