I'm a physician assistant.

Board certified physician assistant.

I've served in the United States Army

for the last 20 years.

I can cast, splint, do I.N.D.s.

Choose appropriate anticoagulation

for patients with heart arrhythmias

I've personally intubated well over 150 patients

during my 30 years in the medical field.

I'm a P.A. in northwest Florida

with over a decade of experience

in the emergency room.

However an outdated law in the state of Florida

is preventing me from saving lives.

The laws in the state of Florida state

that I need to have a supervisory relationship

with a physician and that I can only do those things

that physician delegates to me within the scope

of that physician's practice.

Now that I work in cardiology I'm limited to the things

that a cardiologist does.

Even though I have many years of experience working

in the E.R. and I'm comfortable taking

care of a broken bone,

if I were to have a child come in and fell and injured

their leg,

I could not treat that child.

And now with coronavirus rapidly spreading

across our state,

I can't use my experience from the emergency room,

because I'm currently working in cardiology, to go to where

my skills are needed.

This pandemic means everybody who

has skills, ability and desire to help

should be allowed to do so.

We need all the help and health care professionals

that we have.

I'm a P.A.

in Florida.

I'm a P.A. in Naples, Florida.

And I want to serve my state.

Governor DeSantis, Governor DeSantis,

I am ready to serve patients. Put us to work.

We're here.

We're ready.

I've heard the argument that P.A.s should not

be unsupervised, that an unsupervised P.A. is going

to work outside their scope of practice,

that they're going to replace doctors, that they're

going to perform test and do things

they should not be doing.

This isn't going to happen.

We are trained in general medicine –

the P.A. training gives us the unique ability

to be able to help out in this sort of health care

crisis — when there's a pandemic

and the needs are constantly changing within the health

care environment.

This is not a problem that's unique to the state of Florida.

In the state of California,

Arizona, Oklahoma, Wisconsin,

Washington State, Minnesota, Georgia, in the great state of Texas.

39 out of 50 states have overly restrictive

supervision laws in place preventing P.A.s

from practicing what we've been trained to do.

If states would authorize an executive order,

this would allow a significant workforce to treat people

as their skills and experience allow.

To their credit, several states have done this already.

The governors of New York, Maine and Tennessee

issued executive orders lifting restrictions on P.A.s

and are heavily recruiting them to hospitals.

I've been contacted by the New York health department

at the call of their governor to assist

in their critical health care needs.

I live in Florida and I want to serve my state.

Governor Ron DeSantis, you refused

to shut down our beaches.

You were late in issuing a stay-at-home order.

A pandemic is hitting Florida.

There's nothing we can do to change that.

What we can change is our response and tools

available to handle this crisis.

It is time now to issue an executive order to eliminate

practice barriers for P.A.s.