The diversity of activities and role titles has produced confusion within the nursing and medical professions. This paper addresses the problem of these diverse activities. This author developed an expanded role of the nurse, which was innovative at the University of Oregon Medical Center. The role title assumed was physicians associate which implies that the author is a member of the medical profession with some but not all the privileges of the medical profession. This descriptive field study was therefore designed to develop a tool for identifying the dimensions of the Physicians Associate role and to study the perceptions of this role held by the professionals with whom the author worked at the University of Oregon Medical Center.