Journal of Physician Assistant Education

PURPOSE: This study explored the attitudes of physician assistant (PA) students toward the future care of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI). Physician assistant student education offers a unique opportunity to confront and reduce bias toward individuals with SMI. However, no previous literature has documented PA student attitudes toward SMI. METHODS: Preclinical students (n = 7) from a single PA program were invited to participate in 2 focus groups exploring attitudes toward the future care of patients with SMI...

PURPOSE: Despite recent advancements in policies supporting pregnancy and parenting-related resources for physician assistant (PA) students, there remains a paucity of data on the perceptions of family planning or available resources during training. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of support for, and impact on, family planning and parenting, including lactation, among PA students. METHODS: This cross-sectional study used data collected from the American Academy of Physician Associates Student Survey between January and March 2023...

PURPOSE: To inform physician assistant program directors through citation analysis after implementation of the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) Accreditation Standards, 5th edition. METHODS: This research used descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and the coefficient of determination to analyze the citations reported by ARC-PA during January 2021 to February 2023. Concurrent first-time taker Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) results were used to determine whether a correlation exists between pass rates and citations...

PURPOSE: To better understand factors contributing to low matriculation rates for health professions students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine (URiM), this study examined the influence of healthcare-releated preadmission experiences on physician assistant/associate (PA) program matriculation. METHODS: We analyzed data from the Centralized Application Service for PAs 2018 to 2019 admissions cycle to compare characteristics of non-URiM and URiM PA program applicants and matriculants...

PURPOSE: The full expression of an educator includes scholarship, yet many physician assistant (PA) educators are not published. Several barriers unique to PA education are often cited to explain this phenomenon. However, some in the PA profession have become prolific writers despite working in the same environment. In this study, authors strove to understand what motivated these productive faculty by posing 2 research questions: (1) What are the drivers of success for high-performing PA scholars and (2) how do high performing PA scholars overcome barriers? METHODS: A qualitative study using a constructivist, grounded theory approach explored the experiences and motivation of PA-credentialed educators who published >5 peer-reviewed articles and whose body of work achieved an h-index of >3...

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PURPOSE: The program director (PD) is responsible for providing effective leadership and possessing knowledge of accreditation. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a PD's experience in higher education affects the accreditation outcome. METHODS: This cross-sectional study includes Physician Assistant (PA) programs that underwent an accreditation visit between January 2012 and January 2022. Data analysis was primarily descriptive, stratified by demographic variables, and outcomes of accreditation standards...

PURPOSE: In recent years, there has been a growing trend toward integrating pharmacology instruction into physician assistant (PA) programs by dedicated PA faculty pharmacists. Pharmacists train to become medication experts. Incorporating pharmacist instruction in a PA program during the didactic year provides PA students with an early opportunity to experience interprofessional education and interdisciplinary synergy through clinical application. METHODS: This article presents a retrospective study that aims to evaluate the impact of integrated pharmacology instruction by principal PA faculty pharmacists on student satisfaction and standardized assessment metrics...

INTRODUCTION: Within physician assistant (PA) education, the inclusion of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is mandatory. Despite existing literature on EBM training methodologies for PA students and emergency medicine (EM) physician residents, there exists a dearth of published data concerning EBM instruction within postgraduate PA EM programs. A pilot study is described providing an overview of implementation of an EBM curriculum in a single-institution postgraduate physician assistant and nurse practitioner emergency medicine fellowship...

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PURPOSE: The majority of Physician assistant (PA) educators are women, yet men proportionately publish more and advance further in academic rank. This study examined if research interest, promotion goals, and perceptions of institutional support differed between PA educators with different gender identities. METHODS: This is a subset analysis of a previously published cross-sectional study. PA programs were stratified by region and Carnegie classification and were sampled by a stratified random sampling method...

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Dental caries affect 97% of the world's population during their lifetime. Early childhood caries are the number one chronic disease affecting young children, and it disproportionately affects children of low-income families. American Academy of Pediatrics recommends fluoridated toothpaste to all children starting at tooth eruption, regardless of caries risk. In addition, fluoride varnish is recommended in all children every 3 to 6 months from tooth emergence until they have an established dental home. The health disparities that are most apparent in the rural communities are inadequate prenatal care, low birth weight, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, heart disease, unintentional injury, and stroke...

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate the disparities in career progression and the need for inclusive mentorship in the physician assistant (PA) profession, specifically focusing on racial/ethnic minority faculty. METHODS: Pooled data from the Physician Assistant Education Association Program Survey in 2015, 2017, and 2019 were analyzed to examine the effect of PA faculty race/ethnicity on academic rank promotion. Logistic regression models were used to assess the association between faculty race/ethnicity and the likelihood of being in a middle/late-career (associate/professor) or early-career status (instructor/assistant), adjusting for confounding factors...

BACKGROUND: Physician assistant (PA) education in the clinical year is dependent on clinical preceptors. Recruitment of preceptors has been identified as a significant barrier for programs. As a result of the preceptor shortage, evaluation of the barriers to recruitment and retention has been considered. The lack of development and training was identified as a barrier to recruitment and retention of preceptors. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this scoping review article was to identify structured teaching strategies to reduce the development and training barrier and improve preceptor efficacy and efficiency...

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PURPOSE: The impact of holding a doctoral credential by clinically practicing physician assistants/associates (PAs) remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate practice patterns and describe demographic characteristics of PAs who have terminal doctoral degrees. METHODS: This was a secondary analysis of data obtained from the 2021 Salary Survey of the American Academy of PAs. A total of 13,865 PAs responded to the survey for an estimated response rate of 13...

INTRODUCTION: Clinical ultrasound training is essential to any emergency medicine (EM) clinician's skill set. We aim to understand the current training patterns of clinical ultrasound training within Advanced Practice Provider (APP) residencies. METHODS: In a survey sent electronically to 17 active EM APP residencies, data were obtained from 21 responses to questions about structure of ultrasound faculty, quality assessment, feedback, and competency evaluation. RESULTS: We had a response rate of 88%...