Pre-Physician Assistant/Associate Resources
Updated 9/27/2023
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What is a Physician Assistant?
What is a Physician Assistant?
A Physician Assistant/Associate (PA) are licensed clinicians who practice medicine in every specialty and setting. Trusted, rigorously educated and trained healthcare professionals, PAs are dedicated to expanding access to care and transforming health and wellness through patient-centered, team-based medical practice.
A PA’s medical education and training are rigorous. The PA school curriculum is modeled on the medical school curriculum that involves both didactic and clinical education training. In the didactic phase, students take courses in basic medical sciences, behavioral sciences, and behavioral ethics. In the clinical phase, students complete more than 2,000 hours of clinical rotations in medical and surgical disciplines, including family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, emergency medicine, and psychiatry.
PA duties include diagnosing and treating illness, performing physical exams and procedures, assisting in surgery, prescribing medications, and providing patient counseling and education. PAs are trained and educated similarly to physicians, and therefore share similar diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning. Physician-PA practice can be described as delegated autonomy. PAs use autonomous decision-making for patient care, under the purview of a physician.
The PA profession emerged as a cost-effective way to manage the demand for health care services. With an ever-increasing shortage of primary care physicians, an aging population, and increased numbers of Americans receiving health care under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the demand for PAs continues to grow. Learn more about the history of the PA profession from American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA).
On May 24, 2021, after much debate and discussion, the AAPA House of Delegates (HOD) passed a resolution affirming “physician associate” as the official title of the PA profession by a majority vote of 198 to 68. For more information on the HOD and its responsibility regarding a title change, check the FAQs on AAPA's website.
FAQs about the PA profession, including but not limited to:
What can PAs do?
How do PAs work with physicians?
How are PAs similar and different from nurse practitioners (NPs)?
Timeline for Applying to Physician Assistant Programs
Timeline for Applying to Physician Assistant Programs
While the cycle remains open for a year, it's best to submit your application through CASPA as early as possible in the cycle and when you have enough patient contact hours as required by the schools.
April 27, 2023
Central Application Service for Physician Assistants (CASPA) application cycle opens
See complete list of deadline dates and requirements here (schools review applications and invite for interviews on a rolling basis)
CASPA charges $184 for the first program you apply to and $61 for each additional program. You can find information about the Fee Assistance Program here.
April 1, 2024
CASPA application cycle closes
CASPA Webinar by Kate Jackson, Admissions and Assessment Coordinator of SJU's Graduate PA program.
Any accounts created or documents received (e.g. transcripts or letters of reference) prior to this date will be discarded, but re-applicants have the ability to reactivate their account for future cycles
Review CASPA Applicant Help Center before the cycle opens to avoid unnecessary errors
Questions? contact caspainfo@caspaonline.org or 617.612.2080 during business hours, Monday-Friday
Resources for Pre-PA Students
Resources for Pre-PA Students
Optimal Team Practice occurs when PAs, physicians, and other healthcare professionals work together to provide quality care to patients without burdensome administrative constraints. To support Optimal Team Practice, PA professionals are advocating for their states to:
eliminate the legal requirement for a specific relationship between a PA, physician or any other healthcare provider in order for a PA to practice to the full extent of their education, training and experience
create a separate majority-PA board to regulate PAs or add PAs and physicians who work with PAs to medical or healing arts boards
authorize PAs to be eligible for direct payment by all public and private insurers
Learn why the following are important to the future of the PA profession, allowing PAs to practice fully and efficiently while protecting public health and safety:
“Licensure” as the regulatory term
Full prescriptive authority
Scope of practice determined at the practice level
Adaptable collaboration requirements
Cosignature requirements determined at the practice level
Number of PAs a physician may collaborate with determined at the practice level
What are patient contact hours?
Programs may prefer/recommend or require health care experience (may be referred as "patient contact hours"). If health care experience is required, the program will specify the kinds of experiences that are acceptable and the minimum number of hours.
Here's a list of experiences with varying training/certification requirements to satisfy your hours:
Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Paramedic, or ER Technician
Home Health Aide, Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)
Medical Scribe
Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist, or PT/OT Aide
Clinical Research Assistant (with patient contact)
Other experiences that are less common in undergraduate students: Surgical/OR Technician, Radiology Technician, Optometrist Technician, Respiratory Therapist, Patient Health Educator, Military corpsman/medic, Phlebotomist, Patient Care Technician/Assistant, Medical Assistant, Athletic Trainer, Cardiac Rehabilitation
The Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) has compiled the following reports:
PAEA Student Report (Updated June 2023) This data provides a snapshot of PA students at the very beginning and end of PA school, including their applications to PA school (e.g. GPA, patient contact, community service), program characteristics, student demographics, health & well-being, experiences in PA school, employment plans, financial information, etc.
PAEA Program Report (Updated October 2020): This report reflects information PAEA member programs report in May of the previous year: student demographics, student and faculty characteristics, tuition, scholarships, etc.
PAEA Curriculum Report 6: Prerequisites (Updated February 2023) delivers a comprehensive look at the requirements for entering PA education. This report includes information about programs characteristics, required prerequisite coursework, health care experience, and tests; applications and admissions; and curricular design. When considering the data collection process for Curriculum Report 6, the PAEA Research Team sought to reduce the survey burden following a challenging year for many programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, instead of administering the conventional survey, an analysis was conducted by searching the websites of all nationally accredited PA programs between October 2021 and February 2022.
Learn about different specialties and settings PAs can practice in from these articles and virtual shadowing opportunities:
Learn more about PAs in the ICU, othopaedics, emergency, cardiology, critical care fellow, surgery, and hospital medicine here.
Every Monday eShadowing will bring you a PA at 7 pm EST and a physician at 8 pm to talk about their profession, offer a case presentation, and allow Q&A. Replays are available within an hour of the session and through through Sunday of the same week. After that you can watch Replays on Youtube. Specialties covered include:
Emergency Medicine
Psychiatry
Hospital Medicine
Occupational Medicine
Radiology
Click here to search past sessions using keywords "physician assistant" and "PA-C" and learn more about these specialties that have been featured:
sports medicine
primary care
hematology/oncology
inflammatory bowel disease
dermatology
pathology
The University of Colorado School of Medicine has an online course that includes 5 videos featuring physicians, PAs, and NPs as they go bedside in the Emergency Department to assess and diagnose a simulated patient. Each video is followed by a series of questions, summary by the physician, and a short quiz on the topic addressed.
You must meet the following requirements to be considered for admission to the physician assistant program:
Minimum 3.20 overall and science GPA required
Grades for prerequisite coursework must be “C” or better.
350 hours of health care experience.
Shadowing is not required at this time — Candidates are encouraged to shadow a physician assistant, but there is no minimum requirement of shadowing hours.
Letters of recommendation requirements:
a. One letter from a science professor with whom the applicant completed undergraduate coursework
b. One letter from a supervisor or manager, preferably from the supervisor or manager of your patient care experience
c. One letter from someone of the applicant’s choice
**If any courses, degree completion or health care experience hours are in progress at the time of application, they must be completed by matriculation. Documentation will need to be submitted as requested by the program. Students with more than three required prerequisite courses that are outstanding or incomplete at the time of application are encouraged to apply in the next year's admission cycle. Applicants with less than 350 hours of patient care experience or missing letters of recommendation may not be considered for an interview. Interviews are by invitation only and are granted on a rolling basis.
2020 matriculant averages:
Overall GPA 3.47
Science GPA 3.35
Prerequisite GPA 3.45
Visit the website and watch this CASPA webinar for more information on prerequisites and requirements.
Contact: Kate Jackson (Admissions and Assessment Coordinator)
Prerequisites
Prerequisite courses must be completed within 10 years of matriculation (fall 2013 to the present). All prerequisite coursework must be completed at a regionally accredited college or university with a grade of "C" or better. Online courses and labs will be accepted. All prerequisite coursework must be completed before matriculation into the program.
If you have three or more prerequisites incomplete or outstanding at the time of your application, it is recommended that you apply in the next year’s admission cycle. All grades need to be reflected on your transcript at the time of submission; otherwise, your application will be flagged as “does not meet minimum requirements.” Priority will be given to applicants with all prerequisites completed. Applicants will be denied if they do not meet the minimum admission requirements.
General Biology I + II with lab (8 credits)
General Chemistry I + II with lab (8 credits)
Organic Chemistry with lab or Biochemistry with lab (4 credits)
Microbiology with lab (4 credits)
Statistics (3 credits)
Psychology (3 credits)
Human Anatomy and Physiology I + II with lab (8 credits)
Medical Terminology (1 credit)
Pre-PA Virtual Events
Pre-PA Virtual Events
Click here to access recordings from previous PA Virtual Fair sessions, including:
PA Work Life with Jillian Joseph
Tips for Prospective PA Applicants with Kandee Griffith
Changes & Innovations in PA Education Due to COVID-19 w/ Kasey Dillon
Preparing for a PA Program Interview with Louise Lee
Andriana Cellini, PA-C has been practicing for 7+ years in multiple specialties and reacts to the video from Med School Insiders "So You Wanna be a Physician Assistant." See what she agreed and disagreed with.
In September 2020, the National Society of Black Physician Assistants (IG @thensbpa) hosted a virtual panel where practicing PA-Cs cover the following topics: how to stand out when applying to PA school, getting recommendation letters from PAs, scholarships and financing your education, patient contact hours, getting experiences during the pandemic, finding mentors, etc.
Click here for the recording (panel starts at 18:50) | Passcode: .3mLQHoP
We held a virtual event in May 2020 featuring some of our alumni, including Kavina Naik, BMS’18 who attends the Rutgers University Physician Assistant Program.
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