This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In his essay on the status of graduate surgical education, published in the October issue of the ARCHIVES (1998;133:1039-1040), McMillen, an experienced department chairman in 2 community-based academic medical centers, has discussed financial and regulatory challenges facing surgical residency programs in general and community-based programs in particular. It is useful to frame his observations in terms of expenses and costs. Dr McMillen has calculated that it will take 2.5 physician assistants to replace a single surgical resident. The extraordinary salary and benefit burden this change imposes on the hospital is an expense. There are many other effects of this action that represent costs to the institution, its patients, and ultimately our society.

Examples of the institutional costs of replacement of residents with physician assistants are (1) added wear and tear on attending physicians with the predictable ultimate requirement for more attending coverage; (2) diminished patient safety as a consequence . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?