Gannon University | Employment Outlook

Results of the 2009 AAPA Physician Assistant Census Survey indicate that the mean total income from primary employer for PAs who are not self-employed and who work at least 32 hours per week for their primary employer is $93,105 (standard deviation $23,867); the median is $87,500. The comparable mean for PAs who graduated in 2008 is $78,405 (standard deviation $14,245); the median is $77,500.
Approximately 84% of all individuals eligible to practice as PAs were in clinical practice at the beginning of May 2010.
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that the number of PA jobs will increase by 27 percent between 2006 and 2016. The BLS predicts the total number of jobs in the country will grow by 10 percent over this 10-year period.
AAPA collects information each year on the areas of practice and work settings of physician assistants. In 2008, more than 43 percent of PAs worked in group practices or solo physician offices, and more than one-third were found in hospitals. The remaining PAs were located in rural clinics, community health centers, freestanding surgical facilities, nursing homes, school- or college-based facilities, industrial settings, and correctional systems.
According to the 2008 census report, PAs practice in
- family and general medicine (25.9 percent)
- general internal medicine and its subspecialties (15.6 percent)
- general surgery and surgical subspecialties (25.1 percent)
- pediatrics and pediatric subspecialties (4.3 percent)
- emergency medicine (10.5 percent)
- occupational medicine (2.3 percent)
- obstetrics and gynecology (2.3 percent)
- dermatology (3.6 percent)
- and other areas of medicine.