Ralph W. Rice, MPAS, PA-C, associate professor and associate director of the Wake Forest University PA program in Winston-Salem, N.C., recently told ADVANCE that the university's board of trustees has approved its proposed MMS-PhD program. The program, which would combine the PA program's master of medical science degree with a PhD in clinical ...

  Now that summer classes, like anatomy, physiology and medical terminology, are all over, the fall semester brings an entirely new set of subjects. One class in particular has me thinking about a lot of heavy issues. The class involves studying problems that are prevalent in the communities surrounding us. Each week, we have a different ...

And so the health care reform debate continues... A recent article at Examiner.com champions PAs and NPs as a possible solution to the physician shortage. ''Primary physician shortage spurs search for alternatives,'' by DC public policy examiner Alan Portner, identifies PAs and NPs as the product of ''shorter, more intensive, ...

At the University of North Texas Health Science Center, the fall semester of 2009 begins this week. The new students have become acclimated through orientation while the veterans move forward with déjà vu on their minds. With new beginnings in the air, every student looks ahead wondering what lies beyond the ridge of the unknown. We tend to ...

The fourth recommendation from the PA Clinical Doctorate Summit was particularly interesting. 4. The PA profession should explore with physician education groups the development of a model for advanced standing for PAs who desire to become physicians (sometimes called a ''bridge program.'') Not long ago, the mention of a PA-to-physician bridge ...

The American Academy of Physician Assistants and the Physician Assistant Education Association have posted a statement on last week’s PA Clinical Doctorate Summit. Forty-five people participated in the summit meeting. Here’s a set of recommendations from the meeting: The summit participants came to consensus on the following set of ...

The three-day physician assistant clinical doctorate degree summit began today in Atlanta. PAEA posted a list of the summit's 46 participants on its Web site. Link

The long-awaited PAEA-AAPA physician assistant doctorate degree summit meeting finally begins March 25 in Atlanta. One interesting note, PAEA's online message board about doctorate degrees has a lot of talk about a PA-to-physician bridge program. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the summit. Link

The American Academy of Physician Assistants and Physician Assistant Education Association are conducting an online survey about clinical doctorate degrees and the PA profession. The survey also asks about PA-to-physician bridge programs. Is the clinical doctorate appropriate to the PA profession as an entry-level degree, as a postgraduate ...

Interesting poll results from the ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners Web site. If you had a doctoral degree, would you use the title ''doctor''? - Yes, I earned it. (22%)- Yes, but not with patients. (17%)- No. (60%) Link