(Radio Iowa) – Iowa will no longer require experienced physician assistants — known as P-As — to be work under the direct supervision of doctor in order to practice medicine. P-As who are newly licensed, though, will have to have an agreement with a supervising doctor for two years before they may practice independently. Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill making those changes into law today (Wednesday).

“This is a game changer for rural hospitals and it really makes a difference to be able to provide that access to Iowans who need it,” Reynolds says. “We want to make sure that we do everything we can to maintain health care in rural Iowa.” Over half of the licensed P-As in Iowa today are working in rural communities. Representative Josh Turek, of Council Bluffs, says about 40 percent of the P-As who graduate in Iowa, though, leave to practice elsewhere. “Allowing the PAs to operate independently I think will lead us to keeping more of our PAs here as we are the Harvard of the PAs,” Turek says.

The first class of P-As graduated from the University of Iowa in 1974. The P-A program at Des Moines University has been operating nearly four decades. In the past decade, St. Ambrose University in Davenport and the University of Dubuque started P-A training programs. The P-A program at Northwestern College in Orange City started in 2020.