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Physician Assistant Program kicks degrees up a notch by Heather Woolwine Public Relations Two MUSC physician assistant students obtained master’s level degrees through a new transition curriculum in the College of Health Professions Physician Assistant (PA) Program.   As the program’s first graduates on Dec. 18, the students are part of a national push to award higher level degree status for those who pursue a career as a physician assistant.   Through this program, PAs who received their bachelor’s degree more than five years ago can match their education level with those getting their physician assistant degree for the first time at the graduate level.   “To quote a colleague of mine, ‘PA education has always been master’s level work cloaked in a bachelor’s degree’ for a multitude of reasons,” said Paul Jacques, physician assistant professor and associate department chair for research. “When the curriculum began to change across the nation establishing the PA degree as a master’s degree, those who’d completed bachelor’s degrees wanted to know, ‘what about us?’ Here in South Carolina, we compared the two curricula and added a basic research component, thus producing a four-part, accelerated curriculum that would bring anyone with a bachelor’s physician assistant degree up to speed if they chose to do so.”   Notably, PAs with bachelors degrees earned prior to the transition in degree levels still are able to practice, and are not unequal to those receiving master’s degrees today.   In addition to the various prerequisites required to enter the PA program, students must now complete 112 hours of coursework that involves more clinical problem-solving and research theory, thus providing PAs with well-rounded analytical skills that enable them to improve upon quality of care for their patients.   When MUSC needed someone to lead the way in establishing a master’s level PA program, Jacques' name rose to the top of the list as someone with experience doing just that. Changes to the PA degree requirements emerged about a decade ago, and Jacques established the first master’s level program in New York while working in Buffalo.   At MUSC, CHP’s PA transition curriculum consists of four parts: research methodology, evidence-based medicine, problem-based learning and a graduate project. For admission into the PA transition program, a student must be a practicing PA with a bachelor’s degree, licensed, and must provide a letter of support from the physician with whom the student works on a daily basis.   “As a faculty member, I tried to develop learning teams for advanced problem solving that involved discussions on WebCT. There are some really nice tools to experience clinical cases online, including video clips, etc.,” Jacques said. “Students developed consultations, had others critique it, and provided a medical literature review for that particular case. I was really thrilled to see it working. The cross pollination of ideas that occurs among these students who are dealing with different clinical problems in different practice settings provided a lot of perspectives and ways to learn. The idea is to get them to use the medical literature and write papers they could publish if they want to or, at the very least, identify topics they can take back to their own practices to improve patient care.”   Jacques wasn’t the only one to see benefits related to advanced learning tools and applications.     “Studying the principles of evidence-based medicine has improved my ability to research medical topics in a more concise manner and, hopefully, will improve my overall skills as a clinician,” said Merriman Dowdle, a practicing physician assistant  for the last 10 years who was one of two graduates this winter. “I have also completed some papers that I hope to be able to publish in the near future. I recommend this program to PAs who want to improve their education and learn good research techniques and data retrieval. I also found it to be very challenging, the topics to be extremely interesting, and I feel it helped to improve my writing skills.”   Dowdle, a medicine instructor for the MUSC Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, advised future students to make sure to allot the appropriate amount of time for assignments via WebCT, and reminded them that many weekends and nights would be sacrificed for research and writing. “Overall, this is a great program and I am proud to have completed it,” she said.   With a curriculum designed to encourage students to discern what information they have, what information they need to get, how to discuss it and then how to apply that knowledge, the program is geared toward assimilating what has been traditionally taught in lecture formats into the real world of practicing PAs. “Given all the academic work they’ve done, these additional problem solving and research skills teach them how to turn to medical literature and find answers they need to treat their patients the best way,” Jacques added. “Experience goes a long way, but my goal was to establish the program to help people who want their master’s for whatever reason, and to help them structure skills that will result in the best patient care.”     Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. 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