Physician Assistants: How do you handle a patient who needs immediate help but no doc is around?

How would you handle a patient situation where the patient needed immediate help but the doctor(s) who you normally consult with are not in office that day? (Assume you can't reach them via phone,etc)|||Physicians do not need to be physically present for supervision. They need to be contactable. The supervising physician needs to be contactable by phone when their PA is working. If there is another physician in the practice the PA can call him/her.


PAs are trained to handle most situations. In an outpatient setting if additional help is needed or emergency equipment is needed then 911 can be called.


With technology these days it is almost impossible not to be able to contact a physician or look up information as to how to deal with various situations.|||i'm not a PA, but I'm trying to learn more about the profession.

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|||What is this vague "need for immediate help?" Does the patient have a really nasty paper cut, or a vicious mosquito bite? You would put out a page for the doctor and give them a comfortable chair in the waiting room pending physician's instructions. Is their heart stopped? In case of life-threatening immediate emergency, you do whatever it takes to keep the patient alive, including call 911 and get them to a hospital ER. Meanwhile, if indicated, you would perform CPR until the cavalry arrives. Assuming "not sure what to do" is probably pretty specious. Any experienced PA or RN who's been around for awhile knows exactly what needs to be done in just about any medical emergency that might come along. Also, remember that physicians don't simply disappear. If they're taking a day off, one of their colleagues will be covering calls for him. There is simply no situation imaginable where you would have a medical emergency, no doctor available, no help from anyone else, and you don't know what to do. That doesn't happen. There is always a nearby ER, and an ambulance to transport them.|||Well aren't you the PA. Don't the doctors depend on you to handle situations when they are not available? Still you can only call their answering service or usually another doctor is covering for them|||Tell them to go to the Emergency Room.