[greedo]

Seeing a GP isn't necessarily a guarantee that you will get diagnosed properly. Most PAs know their limits and will consult with a doctor if they're not comfortable. Doctors complain about malpractice insurance, but the rates are high for a reason. I was misdiagnosed when I had cancer, my wife was mis-prescribed when doing fertility treatments. Hell, being rich doesn't help; look at Bill Paxton and Neil Armstrong.

[JudgeWapner]

> Seeing a GP isn't necessarily a guarantee that you will get diagnosed properly.

so, because even the best make mistakes, that's a good reason to let under-trained (relative to an MD) people with even less skill make mistakes? Not following your logic here.

[greedo]

Seeing a PA for relatively normal issues frees up doctors for more serious cases. A triage system if you will. Doctors don't like this because it will hurt them financially. They want people to think of PAs as second rate, and that doctors are infallible.

In my case, my doctor felt that because colorectal cancer (at the time) was relatively unusual for my age demo, that he didn't really need to consider it. Instead of doing an actual DRE, or a fecal occult blood test, he simply dismissed it out of hand (pun intended) as internal hemorrhoids. A year later, I was having a full resection, chemo, radiation treatment, and a permanent colostomy. Thanks!