The accelerated physician assistant pathway: a three-year medical school curriculum for physician assistants to obtain DO degrees.

Problem: To address physician shortages, many have called for medical schools to increase their applicant pool size by broadening their selection criteria. Physician assistants (PAs) are one group that has demonstrated competency and medical knowledge. However, financial and time barriers exist to their applying to traditional four-year programs.

Preliminary outcomes of the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine's 3-year Primary Care Scholar Pathway in osteopathic predoctoral education.

Context: In 2007, the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine initiated its Primary Care Scholar Pathway (PCSP), a 3-year osteopathic predoctoral education curriculum.

Objective: To assess preliminary outcomes of the PCSP curriculum.

Methods: Scores for the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA) Levels 1 and 2-Cognitive Evaluation (CE) and pass rates for Level 2-Performance Evaluation (PE) were obtained for individuals who graduated from the PCSP program in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

The challenges of primary care and innovative responses in osteopathic education.

Numerous reports predict U.S. primary care physician shortages, with deficits of 20,000-46,000 doctors projected by 2020-25.

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine's preclinical problem-based learning pathway program: an alternative medical school curriculum design.

In 1999, the American Osteopathic Association approved plans for "substantive change" to the medical curriculum at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) in Erie, Pa. In addition to the school's traditional, lecture-based curriculum, LECOM sought to create alternative--but distinct--learning pathways: independent study (described elsewhere) and problem-based learning (PBL). After selecting a long-standing, successful PBL program to guide our efforts and after a 1-year period of planning, developing, piloting, and refining the program, we introduced PBL in the 2000-2001 academic year.

A three-year accelerated medical school curriculum designed to encourage and facilitate primary care careers.

For the past decade there has been declining medical student interest in primary care. The cause of this trend is multifactorial and includes issues of salary and indebtedness. Educational leaders have called for careful selection of medical students and the creation of three-year medical school curricula to counter these factors.