Physician assistants take on primary care duties that were once the exclusive domain of physicians. According to Kevin Lohenry, director of the Primary Care Physician Assistant Program at the University of Southern California, there are either 90,000 or 30 million reasons why someone might see a physician assistant rather than a physician. The 30…

When President Barack Obama tapped Dr. Regina Benjamin, a rural Alabama family physician, to serve as U.S. Surgeon General, she joked that her client base went overnight from several hundred to nearly 300 million. Dr. Benjamin, an alumna of historically Black Xavier University of Louisiana and Morehouse School of Medicine, was busy tending to the…

Efforts to expand diversity in the health professions has received a boost from a prominent member of Congress. U.S. Senator Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, recently introduced a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act as part of a comprehensive initiative to improve the health of minority and other underserved populations. This bill, which is being…