Aliza Stern<\/a>, MMS\/MMSc, director of didactic education for the physician assistant program.<\/p>\nA 2020 Association of American Medical Colleges report predicted a shortage of between 54,100 and 139,000 primary care physicians by 2033. The Affordable Care Act enacted in 2010 created greater access to health insurance and to health care, helped spur demand for PAs with a 34% growth in licensed PAs since 2006 and a 38% increase in PA jobs predicted as necessary over the next decade to meet need, according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor.<\/p>\n
The prerequisites for medical school and admission into a PA program are very similar, said White. Initially, there was some concern about PA students keeping up academically, but their track record on other combined courses demonstrated their competency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had the PAs in the second-year DRX (Disease and Therapy) course for a long time and their performance has been pretty equivocal to the MD students,\u201d said Garg.<\/p>\n
Physician assistants fall under the supervision and direction of licensed physicians and that has helped create a team philosophy and approach at the clinical level. But there still is a sense of unfamiliarity and medical and PA school administrators hope the new team-based learning approach will break down some of those barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost MDs have very little understanding of what other people in health care do until they\u2019re pretty far along in their residency, which is a detriment to being successful in treating patients,\u201d said Garg. \u201cThe fact that they\u2019re sitting next to someone who is training in the PA program will help them to understand what a PA is and hopefully undo some of the bias that exists. In clinical practice, it\u2019s much more about teamwork and everyone contributes their expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
PA students go directly from graduation into clinical settings and BU\u2019s PA program has a lot of appeal to prospective students, said Stern, because of the challenge and academic rigor associated with it being taught at a university medical school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is really important for PA students to have a really good foundation of medical knowledge,\u201d said White. While other PA programs may have instructors teaching classes outside their specialties, BU can call upon specialists in all fields, including a robust research community, medical school faculty and physicians at Boston Medical Center. It made no sense having two separate programs teaching the same courses, said White.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe right thing to do was to join them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The unique program closely resembles the teamwork in clinical settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[157,91,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117226"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117253,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117226\/revisions\/117253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Woman](\"\/camed\/files\/2020\/01\/Priya-Garg.jpg\")
\u201cTeamwork is foundational to the curriculum, and our physician assistants have a lot of work experience, many in health care. Some, but not all, of our medical students have that,\u201d said Priya Garg<\/a>, MD, Associate Dean for Medical Education. Garg said PAs and nurse practitioners are helping to fill the ever-widening shortage of primary care physicians as more doctors gravitate to specialties.<\/p>\n![\"Woman](\"\/camed\/files\/2015\/08\/Susan-White-2-144x150.jpg\")
BU started it\u2019s PA program in 2013, in part due to the need for more PAs at Boston Medical Center, said Susan White<\/a>, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics & gynecology and director of the PA program.<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"\/camed\/files\/2017\/11\/Aliza-Stern-1-150x150.jpg\")
\u201cThere\u2019s more need for the PA profession because it\u2019s a cost-effective way of providing care. Physicians alone can\u2019t keep up with the demand for medical care,\u201d said