Pipeline to the Physician Assistant Profession: A Look to the Future.

The current pipeline of physician assistant (PA) school applicants reflects the future workforce of the profession, which is why the admissions process with all its components and variables is so important. Many studies have shown that a workforce that represents the patients it cares for leads to improved health outcomes, especially among underrepresented minority populations. Yet, PA programs have made little progress over the past 2 decades in increasing the diversity of matriculants and graduates.

Reflections on a Physician Assistant Entrance Exam: Does the Profession Need One?

Standardized entrance exams are used in many health professions as one way to objectively measure knowledge and facilitate comparisons across student groups. The physician assistant (PA) profession has historically not employed a profession-specific entrance exam, and the idea was never seriously explored until the Physician Assistant College Admissions Test was developed recently by a commercial assessment publisher, with field testing in some volunteer programs in 2018 and the exam's first administration in May of 2020. The 2020 Physician Assistant Education Association Presidents Commission chose to investigate the issues raised by a consensus-derived, PA-specific entrance exam to stimulate more informed discussion on the efficacy of such an exam.

Reimagining Physician Assistant Education.

The physician assistant (PA) profession has successfully flourished for over 50 years, demand for graduates remains strong, and there is a wealth of research on the quality of care that PA graduates provide. Nevertheless, health care and education are constantly changing, and we must change with them. We must continually scan the horizon and consider how best to adapt to current issues like the clinical sites crisis, as well as evolutions in technology, pedagogy, and in our students themselves.

Using the Core Competencies for New Physician Assistant Graduates to Prioritize Admission Criteria for PA Practice in 2025.

In a fast-changing medical and educational environment, it is incumbent upon the physician assistant (PA) education community to periodically consider what the future practice environment might look like for our graduates. Changes in technology, regulation, reimbursement, health system economics, and health care delivery are among the many forces shaping the practice environment of the future. The 2018 Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) Presidents Commission reflected on what PA practice might look like in 2025 and used the Association's Core Competencies for New PA Graduates to consider what characteristics might therefore be required of the PA graduates who will practice in this future.