PAs and Nurse Practitioners are fully licensed medical providers and using them is standard practice in most primary care settings. Given the shortage of family practice physicians, you will see more and more care delivered by these "mid level" medical providers. The good news is there have been many studies publish in medical journals including JAMA that have shown Nurse Practioners deliver equal and often superior quality of care when compared to physicians and their patients have better health outcomes than physicians, especially when it comes to treating chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and asthma.
While one can sue any provider, mid-level or physician for malpractice, I seriously doubt anyone would be successful in suing simply because a licensed mid-level provided care, unless of course the mid-level misrepresented themselves as a physician.
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