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Nurse Anesthetists vs Physician Assistants

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Nurse Anesthetists and Physician Assistants on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Nurse Anesthetists Physician Assistants
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$223,210
$133,260
Employment · BLS OEWS
50,350
155,540
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
21st pct
11th pct

At a glance

Dimension Nurse Anesthetists Physician Assistants
Median pay $223,210 $133,260
Employment 50,350 155,540
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Growing fast (+8.6%) Growing fast (+20.4%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 2,700 12,000
Typical education · O*NET Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree). Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
AI exposure · published exposure studies Low · 21st pct Low · 11th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 47th pct · 25% of tasks 43rd pct · 23% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index — Augmentation-leaning (73.1%)
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman No No

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: Medicine and Dentistry, Problem Sensitivity, Customer and Personal Service, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Education and Training, English Language, Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking, Oral Comprehension, Written Comprehension, Information Ordering, Psychology, Active Listening, Speaking, Active Learning, Monitoring, Complex Problem Solving, Judgment and Decision Making, Oral Expression, Written Expression, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Near Vision, Speech Clarity, Science, Social Perceptiveness, Service Orientation, Speech Recognition, Computers and Electronics, Writing, Coordination, Time Management, Category Flexibility.

Specific to Nurse Anesthetists

  • Physics
  • Selective Attention
  • Learning Strategies
  • Fluency of Ideas
  • Perceptual Speed

Specific to Physician Assistants

  • Therapy and Counseling
  • Sociology and Anthropology
  • Persuasion
  • Systems Evaluation
  • Flexibility of Closure

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Medical software , Word processing software .

Specific to Nurse Anesthetists

    Specific to Physician Assistants

    Full profiles

    This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Nurse Anesthetists or Physician Assistants — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

    More comparisons

    Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

    Sources for this page

    Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

    Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

    Cite this page
    Plain

    Singulariki. "Nurse Anesthetists vs Physician Assistants." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/nurse-anesthetists-vs-physician-assistants

    APA

    Singulariki. (2026). Nurse Anesthetists vs Physician Assistants. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/nurse-anesthetists-vs-physician-assistants

    BibTeX 
    @misc{singulariki-nurse-anesthetists-vs-physician-assistants,
  title  = {Nurse Anesthetists vs Physician Assistants},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/nurse-anesthetists-vs-physician-assistants}
}

    Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.