SHU amps up physician assistant program
- From left, Clinical Associate Professor Harry Pomeranz; Teresa Thetford, physician assistant program chairwoman;Â and Ariana Balayan, associate director of graduate admissions. Photo by Tracy Deer-Mirek
Sacred Heart University”™s College of Health Professions is working with Stamford Hospital to launch a new full-time, 27-month master of physician assistant studies (MPAS) program, with an initial class of 28 students starting in fall 2016.
SHU has applied for the program to be accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant, based in Georgia. If successful, the accreditation would arrive in March. The school already has secured the state license to run the program.
The school reported in a prepared statement that more than 800 applicants have applied to attend the program since the application process opened in April, “reflecting the rapid nationwide growth in demand for physician assistants.” Up to 150 people will be interviewed for 28 seats in the inaugural class.
The SHU MPAS program will be in Stamford, on the second floor of Stamford Hospital”™s Tandet Building, next to the main hospital on West Broad Street.
The 13,000-square-foot space is in the process of a full renovation and will include a state-of-the-art lab, classrooms and a patient-assessment suite. The program will consist of a 12-month classroom phase followed by a 15-month clinical phase providing 2,000 hours of experience in several medical specialties. All students will complete clinical rotations primarily at Stamford Hospital “as well as other SHU-affiliated hospitals and health-care sites,” SHU reported.
Teresa Thetford, department chairwoman and founding program director of SHU”™s physician assistant program, said students will be prepared to practice medicine on health care teams with physicians and other providers. A certified physician assistant, according to SHU “is a graduate of an accredited physician assistant educational program who is nationally certified and state-licensed to practice medicine in a variety of settings with the supervision of a physician.” Physician assistants can prescribe medications in all 50 states.
The school reported a goal of the program is to improve access to quality health care in Fairfield County and surrounding communities, including rural and urban medically underserved populations. Thetford said SHU will emphasize primary care and population health and wellness as well as patient-centered care that is individualized.
“What makes us stand out will be our focus on patient-centered primary care and addressing the needs of the medically underserved,” says Thetford.
“As health care in the U.S. continues to evolve, the need for primary care providers, both physicians and physician assistants, will grow,” said Dr. Henry Yoon, associate director, Family Medicine Residency program at Stamford Hospital and medical director of SHU”™s MPAS program. “As a teaching hospital of Columbia University”™s College of Physicians and Surgeons, medical academics and a sense of continuously improving the care we provide now and in the future are deeply engrained in our culture.”
The aging of the population, chronic health needs and increasing demand for health services driven by the Affordable Care Act are primary factors in the decision to establish the MPAS program at SHU, the school said. SHU said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects job growth of 38 percent for physician assistants between 2012 and 2022 and, according to the American Academy of Physician Assistants, only 22 percent of Connecticut physician assistants work in primary care.