Dermatology diagnoses among rural and urban physician assistants.

Objectives: Dermatology is not heavily covered in the curricula of physician assistant (PA) programs or on the certification examination, even though patient visits to PAs for skin complaints are very common. If significant on-the-job training is thus required for dermatology care, then practice setting differences likely impact the quality of that informal training. This study sought to identify differences in the ability of rural and urban PAs to diagnose skin disorders.