The First Blog

Hello!


This is my first post so don't go expecting Shakespeare (especially with my dyslexia)!


I have recently completed my training as a Physician Assistant (see here for an explanation of what a PA is) and I am waiting to start my first PA job. In this blog I intend to chart my first job and the development of the PA profession in general as it develops in the UK. 


You might think, "Ah, new profession, developing well" but it always seems to be up against funding issues, even now. Currently funding for training is a combination of students paying fees to the universities and the strategic health authorities paying for the clinical placements. However, with the health authorities being abolished and replaced with GP consortia, what hope of funding for training? Will GPs want to pay for PA training when we do not work solely in GP practice? I think not and I hope the Department of Health will recognise this with dispatch and organise some central funding - but then how often do politicians do the right thing? Jobs are another issue, but I think i will tackle that in another post!


On a different note, after watching BBC Horizon this week I have decided to blog about science in general. In that programme Paul Nurse (president of the Royal Society) pointed out that sometimes scientists aren't the greatest communicators and partly because of this, science is not as trusted as it once was. So I intend to use this blog to do my bit to aid science communication and public understanding of science. So if you have a question about science, medicine or archaeology, please ask away, I will do my best to answer it. I make no claim to know everything (in the grand scheme I know precisely bugger all) but I will research answers and try to put it in the most comprehensible way I can!


Take care!