First Online PA Program
By now you’ve surely heard of the first Physician Assistant, excuse me, Physician Associate program wanting to go “live”. What I mean by this is a fully incorporated didactic online program in medicine resulting in the completion of a master's degree without any prior PA training (no certificate, associate’s or bachelor’s degree in PA studies). Yale first announced this news on March 10th, 2015 and while it has had mixed feelings from across the PA and physician community, technology is changing, education is changing, and the realm of the physician assistant must change too. In this article I will brief you on the background of the program and hopefully provide an unbiased approach to online physician assistant programs.
The introduction of Yale School of Medicine's online Physician Associate program has definitely stirred about much debate. Schools like Yale have an outstanding reputation of graduating highly skilled and well-trained physician associates/assistants, but in April of 2015 ARC-PA did approve their initial proposal, as an increase in class size was necessary.
