Assisting the Great Physician

For more than two decades as a physician assistant, I have felt great reward in responding to a vocation to “assist”. My chosen work is a manifestation of true diakonia. I have heard that vital word translated as “ministry” or “service”. It is the source of the word “deacon”. One spiritual advisor who knew my career path chose to define diakonia for me as “assistant”, one who does work that benefits someone else. That slightly non-traditional definition of a single Greek word has been a source of strength for me throughout my career.

The reward is felt not merely in my role as an assistant to any one specific medical doctor but, in a broader sense, in assisting wherever I can to increase and maintain the health of others. On one occasion, I recall reading my business card silently to myself. I smiled at seeing the two phrases “Physician Assistant” and “Assistant Professor” in such close proximity to each other. At that time, in my two chosen professions of medicine and academia, I seemed to be twice removed from the seat of ultimate authority. I was comfortable in the knowledge that, in the end, there is only one such seat to be had, and it will never be mine, nor any other person’s. One day, I may hear a voice say “Friend, move up to a better place”, as the humble dinner guest was eventually exalted in Luke’s gospel (Lk 14:10-11). That will be the closest that any of us gets to the seat of ultimate authority, despite what some of my more self-aggrandizing supervising physicians have believed.

There is a combination of humility and a deep sense of purpose in pursuing a career with the modifier “assistant” placed so prominently in your title. Physician assistants by definition possess a sense of humility in that we strive to do our very best work each day largely for the greater glory of another – our employer, our supervising physician, and for many, our God. Recently, physicians have been known to say that the prestige and financial rewards of practicing medicine are not what they once were. Physician assistants can expect even fewer of these perks than doctors expect. Even some physicians admit that, if they had to do it all over again, they would seriously consider a career as a physician assistant: all of the healing, with significantly fewer tension headaches. Yet PAs that I have known and have educated show great career satisfaction, with an unmatched sense of purpose in studying and practicing medicine simply to know, to help, and to heal. That is diakonia in every sense of the word.

- adapted from the esssay An Assistant to the Great Physician (in press).