I’m a physician assistant. 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 However an outdated law in the state of Florida is preventing me from saving lives.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.