Addressing the Global Health Care Workforce Crisis: A Medical Anthropological Approach
Mary Showstark, MPAS, PA-C, assistant professor adjunct and director of Virtual Interprofessional Education, Physician Assistant Online Program
This was originally posted by the Yale School of Medicine.
“A global health care workforce crisis exists. Physician assistant/physician assistant comparable (PA/PA-comparable) professions can help fill this gap especially in areas such as obstetrics/gynecology, surgery, and infectious disease.” This is how Mary Showstark, MPAS, PA-C, begins her introductory article in the volume of Social Innovations Journal entitled A Healthcare Workforce Cadre That Meets A Country’s Needs, for which she was guest edition curator and editor. Showstark is an assistant professor adjunct and director of Virtual Interprofessional Education for Yale School of Medicine’s Physician Assistant Online Program.
Showstark focuses on several elements of the global health care workforce crisis. First, she discusses how in 2008, the World Health Organization advocated for “Treat, Train, Retain,” referring to implementation of task-shifting or task-sharing to try to address the unmet burden of disease. Showstark explains that task-sharing, a less hierarchal term than task-shifting, recognizes that health care providers should work together in an interprofessional collaborative. Additionally, she emphasizes the need to address and strengthen inclusiveness, social accountability principles, interprofessional practice and education, and health equity.
In their introduction to the journal volume, Showstark and Nicholas Torres, co-founder, Social Innovations Journal, state, “we believe that strengthening knowledge networks will lead toward the adoption and implementation of global policy recommendations locally,” for example regarding task-sharing and diversification of the workforce. A Healthcare Workforce Cadre That Meets A Country’s Needs seeks to address this need for information—Showstark has taken what she terms a “medical anthropological approach,” compiling articles by health care providers from 31 different countries that describe aspects of the PA profession or the equivalent of the PA profession in their country. (In her introduction, Showstark explains, that the PA role exists in more than 50 countries, but there is no unifying, international name.)
“A global health care workforce crisis exists. Physician assistant/physician assistant comparable (PA/PA-comparable) professions can help fill this gap especially in areas such as obstetrics/gynecology, surgery, and infectious disease.”
Mary Showstark, MPAS, PA-C, assistant professor adjunct and director of Virtual Interprofessional Education, Physician Assistant Online Program
The articles about each country include general background information about the profession in that country, and also details on entry criteria, educational requirements and how to finance education, accreditation/regulation, professional licensure, scope of practice, and job opportunities. The countries profiled—which span multiple continents— include New Zealand, Germany, Canada, Ghana, and Laos, among others.
Showstark hopes this data collection, which provides practical tools and solutions, will both support local change networks in the PA field to address the global health workforce crisis, and be a guide for other health care workforce cadres.
In publishing this volume, the Social Innovations Journal partnered with The Network: Toward Unity For Health (TUFH), Physician Assistants for Global Health (PAGH), International Academy of PA Educators (IAPAE), International PA Organization (IPAO), Global Association for Clinical Officers (GACOPA), and the International Federation of Physician Assistants/Physician Associates and Clinical Officer/Clinical Associate/Comparable Student Federation (IFPACS), the Beyond Flexner Alliance, and AFREHealth.