Glossary
Physician Assistant Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential physician assistant terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key physician assistant vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in physician assistant training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Chief complaint
- The patient’s main concern.
- CME
- Continuing medical education.
- Collaborating physician
- Physician who works with a PA.
- Comorbidity
- Another condition a patient has.
- Contraindication
- Reason not to use a treatment.
- Differential diagnosis
- List of possible causes.
- HPI
- History of present illness.
- PA-C
- Certified physician assistant.
- PANCE
- Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam.
- The right to prescribe.
- Recertification
- Renewing PA-C.
- Rotations
- Clinical training in specialties.
- Scope of practice
- What a PA may legally do.
- SOAP note
- Subjective, objective, assessment, plan.
- Triage
- Prioritizing patients.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Physician Assistant practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Physician Assistant training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.