First, all of us at Hospital Dream Jobs would like to wish you a happy, healthy New Year. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide the information and inspiration you need to follow your dreams as you pursue a career in healthcare. 2011 is sure to be memorable as a new legislative session gets under way in Washington and healthcare reforms begin to take shape. This week I decided to take a look at what is going on in the world of Physician Assistants.

In November, PA Karen Bass made national headlines when she was elected to Congress, the first PA to serve at this level. No stranger to the spotlight, Ms. Bass made history in 2008 when she was elected to be the Speaker for the California Assembly – the first African American woman in the country to serve in this legislative role. The American Association of Physician Assistants (AAPA) issued a press release after Bass’s election saying they looked “forward to the patient-centered health care perspective Bass is likely to bring to both the U.S. House of Representatives and the impending debates about health care reform implementation.”

Bass was a PA at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where she practiced in an integrated team-based model of health care delivery that allows physicians, PAs and other non-physician providers more time with patients. This approach is considered by some to be the wave of the future as our healthcare system struggles under the burden of ever-rising costs, decreasing numbers of physicians and burgeoning numbers of patients.

As licensed and certified health care professionals, PAs practice medicine with physician supervision and bring a wide array of knowledge and skills to patient care. They perform a variety of procedures from conducting physical exams to diagnosing illnesses to assisting in surgery and more. In a survey conducted by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) 94% of PA’s employers reported that PAs helped increase the number of patients seen and 91% said that PAs enabled them to allow patients more time to ask questions during their office visits. In this same survey, 99% of the employers raved about the high-quality, compassionate care provided by their PAs.

 In 2010 the Six Key Elements of a Modern Physician Assistant Practice Act (elements address licensure, prescriptive authority, scope of practice, supervision requirements, chart co-signature requirements and the number of PAs a physician may supervise) was introduced.  Many state PA chapters hope to emphasize these elements to their state policy makers as the states look at making these and other changes to the delivery of patient care in advance of implementing federal health care reform.

This is going to be a groundbreaking year, not just for PAs, but for everyone working in healthcare and we at Hospital Dream Jobs look forward to accompanying you on the journey as you forge ahead in your healthcare careers!

We are pleased to introduce New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a new Featured Employer here at Hospital Dream Jobs. NewYork-Presbyterian has extremely high levels of both employee and patient satisfaction scores. They maintain these scores while serving over 2 million patients a year.

They are the largest not-for-profit academic medical center in the nation and last month, they received the prestigious ranking of #6 in America’s Best Hospitals list by U.S. News & World Report.

To help job seekers learn more about their culture, career areas and upcoming events, NewYork-Presbyterian has created a new career website. This site offers a wealth of information and gives job seekers an opportunity to hear first-hand stories from hospital employees.

Edy, a Clinical Laboratory Chief Technologist, says that the people she works with are truly quality people, focused on patients. On her video, she shares that one Friday evening, an Oncologist approached her with a baby’s bone marrow aspirate in hand. “I need to treat this patient today,” he said. The Oncologist, Pathologist and Edy sat side-by-side to run the needed tests far into the evening so that the baby could receive care that night. “I’m a mother.” She says, “And that baby is someone’s loved one.”

Marisol, a Physician’s Assistant in the surgical department agrees. “The teamwork is amazing.” She thrives on connecting with her co-workers and also enjoys the annual Employee Recognition Day. “The care here, for all people, is outstanding.” She says, “The best compliment is when a patient tells me that they are comfortable and happy. They also like that I can speak Spanish. And everyone that I work with here is so very compassionate and caring. It makes a big difference for me.”

In spite of high unemployment rates and budget cuts at medical centers nationwide, NewYork-Presbyterian continues to hire and support employee benefits and programs. In 2009, the hospital hired 1,918 new employees, including 658 new nurses, and they expect to hire more than 1,900 employees this year. It’s obvious that they value their team members, patients and quality care.

Search for current job openings at NewYork-Presbyterian.