physician assistant

noun

: a person certified to provide basic medical services usually under the supervision of a licensed physician

called also PA, physician's assistant

Examples of physician assistant in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The urgent care physician assistant took X-rays and nothing was broken. —Harlan Selesnick, Miami Herald, 16 Oct. 2025

Types of health care providers may include people like physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and physician assistants. —Jacqueline Howard, CNN Money, 15 Oct. 2025

The union also expressed concern that nurses have been missing meals and breaks due to short staffing, and that nurse practitioners and physician assistants have been seeing appointment slots be double- or triple-booked, Mason said. —Caelyn Pender, Mercury News, 14 Oct. 2025

There, she was told by a physician assistant that her water had broken, and the baby was unlikely to survive. —Nicole Nixon, Sacbee.com, 26 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for physician assistant

• coexistent
• equidistant
• inconsistent
• nonexistent
• preexistent
• consistent
• existent
• insistent
• persistent
• resistant
• subsistent
• distant

Medical Definition

physician assistant

noun

physician as·​sis·​tant

-ə-ˈsis-tənt

variants also physician's assistant

: a specially trained person who is certified to provide basic medical services (as the diagnosis and treatment of common ailments) usually under the supervision of a licensed physician

called also PA