The Tufts University School of Medicine has announced a new physician assistant (PA) program that will welcome its first class in January, according to School of Medicine Assistant Professor Richard Murphy.
The development of the PA program at the School of Medicine has continued over a year and a half, and the proposal for the program was submitted last fall, Dean of the Public Health and Professional Degree Programs and Chair of the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine Aviva Must said.
PAs practice medicine under the guidance of physicians and surgeons, and they are approved to offer diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive healthcare services, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' website.
The program is currently undergoing an accreditation process that should be completed by September, according to Murphy.
The application portal for the program will be open this May and the first class, comprised of 30 students, will matriculate next January, Murphy said. In the next three years, Murphy said that the program hopes to increase its class size to 50 students.
The program duration is 25 months — the first 12 months being dedicated to classroom training in areas such as advanced anatomy and physiology, surgery, psychiatry, women's health and behavioral medicine, and the final 13 months including clinical rotations among affiliated hospitals, private practices and clinics under the supervision of physicians and other graduate PAs, according to Murphy.
After the program is completed, PAs may pursue careers in a variety of fields based on their individual interests, according to Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Carol Baffi−Dugan.
The PA profession has expanded particularly in response to the growing lack of healthcare staff, Dean of Clinical Affairs at the School of Medicine Henry Klapholz said.
"There's a tremendous shortage nationally of qualified physician assistants," Klapholz said. "This is done in an attempt to improve and enhance the quality of care. We're a medical school, and our goal is to provide the education necessary to provide optimal care to our population both here and globally for that matter."
Must believes that society's awareness of health care options is increasing.
"Mid−level physician assistants are one of the solutions that people are looking at as a way to improve access to care at a reasonable cost to residents of the U.S.," Must said.
Klapholz was in charge of finding hospitals where PA students would work during their second year in the program. He said that he initially thought it might be difficult to find institutions willing to help train the PA students, but almost all of the institutions that he approached were excited to help host them.
"It turns out that essentially every hospital that we approached was thrilled to participate because they viewed this as a training ground for their future workforce," Klapholz said. "They too have had trouble getting adequate trained physician assistants, particularly in certainly specialties."
Baffi−Dugan noted that a PA program was notably lacking at the Tufts University School of Medicine and that there are only two PA programs available in the Boston area.
"In my estimation there's a need for more physician assistant programs. [Boston has] multiple programs in many of the other health professions, but only two to train physician assistants, and they're not very large," she said. "So I think our health sciences center downtown, and our medical school in particular, saw the gap and felt that there was a place for them to step in and help fill the gap."
The two other current PA programs in Boston are located at Northeastern University and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, although the future PA program at Tufts will be the only one based out of a medical school, according to Baffi−Dugan.
"Being based at a medical school makes a lot of sense," Murphy said. "The faculty there is used to teaching healthcare providers at a physician level, and PAs basically can perform almost 80 percent of what primary care physicians can do, so it's a natural place for PAs to be trained."
Murphy also noted the international advantages of the developing PA profession.
"We're seeing PAs going off to underserved areas such as Haiti or Central America and Africa and doing tremendous work on a volunteer basis at some of these underserved countries," Murphy said. "PAs are really gaining a foothold or a beachhead in healthcare delivery not just in American medicine but throughout the world."
Must said that the PA career has been ranked as the best or second−best profession by a number of sources. She said the Tufts program would offer opportunities for inter−professional education by having PAs training alongside the medical students.
"I hope it will lead to another wonderful opportunity for [my students] to pursue a rewarding career where they can take care of patients, because most students who come to see me want to make a difference, want to care for patients and want an opportunity to do that, so here's another great opportunity," Baffi−Dugan said. "So I hope it will lead to that, and I'm pretty sure it will."
