Posted by Me on July 23, 2008, 6:52 pm, in reply to "Re: Confused now!"
I agree to all of those comments as to the future of the AA profession and to the situation AAs are in as a whole at the moment. I had read that the highest number of baby boomers would be retiring as early as 2010, where the AAs would see a marked rise in demand for anesthesia providers (even higher than the current extremely high demand). There is an organization for AAs...it is called the AAAA, the american academy of anesthesiologist assistants (anesthetist.org). The biggest hurdle is to get out into all the remaining closed states. The major opposition is the docs in each state. Also, while opinions vary among CRNAs the AANA does not generally like the idea of the AA profession. And your right...the last thing MDAs want right now is another independent provider to compete against. All in all, the AA profession is going no where but forward with more demand and more acceptance. The biggest hurdle is that many providers (in the North and the West) don't even know AAs exist!!!
