Physician Assistants/Associates in Critical Care: A Descriptive Analysis Using the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants Dataset

OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the size, trajectory, and practice characteristics of the physician assistant/associate (PA) workforce specializing in critical care. The demand for critical care service delivery is growing, and the supply of physician critical care specialists is not fully meeting this demand. The purpose of this research is to describe the characteristics of PAs in critical care medicine. DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional analysis. SETTING: “PA Professional Profile” 2023 survey instrument from the National Commission on Certification for Physician Assistants. SUBJECTS: PAs who have identified their role in critical care medicine. INTERVENTIONS: Dataset regarding demographics, practice characteristics, income, and retention for the study population. Descriptive and bivariate statistics were used to compare findings of PAs practicing in critical care and PAs in all other disciplines. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: By the end of 2023, 2561 PAs reported working in critical care (2.0% of PAs). Of these PAs, 1738 (67.9%) were under age 40 (mean, 37.5; sd, 9.3), and 1740 (67.9%) had 10 years or less as a board-certified PA (mean, 9.3; sd, 7.8). The average income was $137, 793 (sd, $32, 882). Geographically, there were more PAs in critical care in the Northeast (38.7%) and South (36.1%) compared with other regions in the United States, and 2493 PAs in critical care (97.7%) resided in urban settings. Additionally, 408 PAs (16.1%) in critical care reported completing a postgraduate training program, more prevalent than PAs in all other specialties (5.4%; p < 0.001). More PAs in critical care report symptoms of burnout (n = 944; 38.5%) than PAs in all other specialties. CONCLUSIONS: Team-based and multidisciplinary health care is becoming standard in the ICU setting, and the role of PAs is growing in critical care. This follows a trend over the last 10 years of PAs increasingly working in inpatient acute care settings and completing postgraduate clinical training.