VISTA Voice

By the year 2025, industry analysts predict the healthcare industry will undergo major shifts, including a noticeable gap in the number of available healthcare providers. A combination of more insured patients, an aging population, a rise in the number of veterans with medical issues, and a shortage of doctors pose challenges to an already stressed system. Advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners and physician assistants are vital to helping close the gap between patient demand and provider supply.

As time goes on, the shortage of physicians is increasing. Demand is exceeding supply due to an aging population as well as the long training times involved in getting new medical students their degrees. The raw capacity of medical schools is also limited.

Physicians have many tasks and responsibilities vying for their time, including mountains of paperwork, increased patient volume, electronic medical record demands, outdated technologies, and countless interruptions. All of these issues add stress and affect the ability of physicians to focus on their primary purpose for getting into medicine in the first place: caring for their patients. If you are dealing with exceptional levels of stress as a physician, the tips below will help you to increase your productivity and boost your job satisfaction. Better productivity can also improve patient care.

In honor of National PA Week, VISTA wishes to extend a sincere and tremendous thank-you to physician assistants everywhere. From October 6-12, we’re celebrating National PA Week, which recognizes the PA profession and its contributions to the nation’s healthcare. During PA Week, we hope you’ll have the chance to talk to a PA about what it is they do, and why they're proud to do it.

Spend a few minutes watching a top medical show and you will probably realize that many aspects of hospitals and doctor’s offices on TV aren’t realistic. Amidst all the drama, there are still valuable lessons to be learned from our favorite fictional doctors. We uncovered a few in part 1, and here is more from the most popular TV doctors.

Editor's note: This post was originally published March 13, 2017, and has been updated for Match Week 2019.

The Match is something every doctor remembers. Years of school, intense study, and preparation lead to this moment when medical students learn where they will spend their next three to eight years or more in specialty training.

Match Week 2019 is around the corner, with Match Day on Friday, March 15th. To all medical students heading into Match Week — congratulations! No matter what happens, you’ve worked hard to get here and should be proud of your accomplishments.

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) across the country are celebrating the 20th annual National CRNA Week, January 20-26th. Established by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA), National CRNA Week was created to educate the public about anesthesia patient safety, questions to ask prior to undergoing surgery, and the benefits of receiving care from nurses anesthetists.