Assistant Physicians

Assistant Physicians is a physician who has successfully completed 4 years of medical school and one year of internship, but has not yet completed a residency. Many physicians fall into this category and are unable to obtain licensure in any state except for Missouri. Missouri’s quality of healthcare is ranked #35 compared to Nevada’s ranking of 38, so apparently their healthcare with these physicians of limited training is at least as good as Nevada’s and surpasses it by the most popular rating metric.

I spoke with the chairman of Missouri’s board of medical examiners. He said he has not seen significant malpractice complaints arising from this group. He did say that his state was flooded with applications and that this has helped to reduce their physician shortage.

I propose that in Nevada we offer a restricted medical license to assistant physicians. They would require a supervising physician to oversee their activities, much like a physician assistant. I believe to start with, one, or only a limited number of organizations should be allowed to employ assistant physicians. After 2-3 years if this action seems successful and we have not seen a rise in malpractice claims, then we can remove the restriction on the number of organizations which can employ physicians of this type.

This would be a rapid way to at least partially address the physician shortage in Nevada. It would also allow physicians who completed medical school and internship a way to start paying off their school loans while applying to another residency program.