Response to Questions: Pre-Physician Assistant Concentration

First, what is the rationale for locating this program in your department as opposed to other possible departments that might house it here at UD? Understand this question is not meant to seem like a challenge, rather, we want to know the rationale for why it fits best in your department, and also, do you think other departments might argue it belongs elsewhere, or do you think all would agree this belongs in Med Tech?

Students can adequately prepare for entry into post-baccalaureate programs in medicine, physical therapy, physician assistant, and other allied health professions with virtually any undergraduate major so long as they have met the required prerequisites for that program. However, when students are targeting one of these programs it is advantageous to select a major that 1) has the prerequisite courses embedded among the major requirements, and 2) additionally requires courses with content clearly aligned with the targeted profession.

The impetus for proposing this new concentration arose when Dean Janice Burke of the Thomas Jefferson School of Health Professions approached Dean Kathy Matt to specifically request that the College of Health Sciences develop an undergraduate articulation for the developing physician assistant program at Jefferson. The College of Health Sciences is the logical home for such a program because we already train students for the allied health professions of nursing, medical laboratory science and physical therapy, and we also house an existing articulation with the occupational therapy program at Jefferson. The undergraduate major in Medical Diagnostics was a logical choice for housing the pre-physician assistant concentration because the major was originally designed as a pre-medical/pre-physician assistant degree option. The prerequisite courses for entry into the physician assistant program at Jefferson are already included among the requirements for the major and the other course requirements are clearly relevant for a career in medicine.

Because many physician assistant programs require that students have completed a four-year baccalaureate degree prior to admission, we have designed the program to have both a three-year option for articulated programs and a four-year option for students targeting a program that requires graduation with a baccalaureate degree.

Second, what are the requirements for getting into this concentration? Does it align with national standards, and if so, which ones?

National standards (i.e., accreditation) do not exist for Pre-Physician Assistant programs/concentrations. However, the proposed concentration in Pre-Physician Assistant does include the course prerequisites most commonly required for admission to physician assistant graduate programs. In addition to the science courses listed below, students will complete courses in statistics, ethics, and psychology.

Eligibility for admission to the concentration in Pre-Physician Assistant includes: minimum GPA of 3.0 in first four semesters of coursework, including such courses as BISC 207/BISC 208, BISC 300, CHEM 103/CHEM 104, CHEM 321/CHEM 322, KAAP 309/KAAP 310.  The mathematics prerequisites include one of the following courses: MATH 114, MATH 115, MATH 117, MATH 221 or MATH 241.