Preserving 50 Years of Physician Assistant History

Physician assistants (PAs) have been making history for 50 years. For the past 15 years, the PA History (PAHx) Society has been working to make sure this history is not lost. The Society began in 2002 as a membership organization based at Duke University and since 2011 has been a supporting organization of the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). Highly visible and active in the PA community, the Society encourages all PAs to understand their professional history and embrace it as a part of their professional identity. The Society, through the work of its board of trustees, historians, and staff, tells the story of the collective efforts of physicians, PAs, nurses, lawyers, educators, and policy makers to create a human innovation that has changed how medicine is practiced in the United States and, more recently, in other countries. The Society provides PA faculty and students access to a growing collection of historically relevant and primary source materials that can be used for educational, research, and literary purposes.