As a Canadian I'm not too familiar with exactly how that works. All I know is that physician assistants are like a super nurse that deals less with piss and shit and blood and more with medications and asking questions and testing, all while earning around 100k and having a really easy time finding work. My understanding is that whatever professional association PAs use is restricting supply in the same way doctors do: limiting the nr of people taking the degree and getting the certification. License arbitrage, basically. This is how they end up with 100k for a cushier job than a nurse, and can move almost anywhere in the US and find a job as easy as a doctor can. Also makes them immune to legal or illegal immigrant competition, immune to outsourcing, immune to a lot of things that have ruins other occupations. Hospitals are only too happy to pay a PA 100k instead of paying a doctor 250k or more, since PAs are a relatively new occupation whose job description is pretty much carved out of part of what doctors do. PAs can even independently prescribe medication AFAIK. Varies by state I think. Obviously he dr has the final say, and you will never see PAs doing surgery or anything, but as far as I can tell it's like being a nurse only with the shittiest parts taken out. If you can get a PA license, you can milk that to high heaven. Like a mini-Doctor, basically.

There are other similar jobs where license arbitrage leads to high pay and easy to find work. These things are linked, and are the result of restricted supply. The trick is to find a way for YOU to get a license in whatever restricted field you want to pursue. The military is usually a way to get that license where otherwise you couldn't either because you can't pay for it or because you can't get in the school. Most training in the military is either provided by them directly or they have deals with schools where you bypass the line of chumps standing in line hoping to get a spot.

Quick note about PAs, since I don't think everyone here is American.

I don't think PAs exist in Canada or if they do are very new and not paid nearly as well. The rewards only come once you establish the license in law and have a professional association limiting supply. Our socialized medicine doesn't create the same perverse incentives as medicine for profit. I mean if I was running a for profit hospital, damn right I would encourage the creation of new specialties between nurses and doctors so I can undercut doctor pay. The less I pay in salaries the more the hospital profits and the more I make in bonus. In Canada going for PA might not be as lucrative as the states. But we have others, for example teachers which are ALL unionized, or police officers which are also all unionized, etc. If you get in you're in at 80-100k for the rest of your life with a taxpayer backed pension. So license arbitrage via military over here would mean joining the army as a military police grunt, where competition is much less than civilian police recruiting. Then you do your 3 or 4 years, get out, and get accepted in any police force that has a vacancy because you're already qualified.

Basically both in the US and Canada capitalism is so out of control right now that the only way you can have a comfortable life is if you inherit money or connections, if you luck the fuck out (i.e. happen to be the only female aboriginal applying to med school that year), if you have a very unusual talent (programming in Haskell), such the right dick (literally) and get hooked up as an actor/musician/tv personality, or finally if you take refuge in either fortress bureaucracy or a niche where license arbitrage protects you. Regular careers are going to shit. I know chief engineers who made 140k in 2006 now making 60k and putting in tons of unpaid overtime. The professional engineer association created an onerous license called PEng, but they didn't restrict supply so now they're fucked.