Didactic Year

In the first year of the Program, PA students are required to attend all classes and educational sessions, master physical examination skills, complete all laboratory exercises, attend assigned patient interactions, and complete Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). Students must complete all scheduled courses (fifty-five credit hours) during the summer, fall and spring semesters. Students should generally expect to be on campus Monday – Friday, 8 am – 5 pm. Educational experiences may also include extended hours of instruction, including evenings, nights, and weekends.

Examples of unexcused absences include weddings, scheduled (non-emergent) medical or dental appointments, and travel. Care should be taken to not schedule flights that will conflict with classes or programmatic activities (including remediation). Please do not schedule flights prior to 6 pm on Friday evenings throughout the didactic year. This also applies to the last day of classes prior to a scheduled holiday or break.

Before proceeding into the clinical phase of the curriculum, students must satisfactorily complete all didactic work.

Overview

Clinical medicine, pharmacology, and therapeutics are combined (Clinical Medicine and Pharmacotherapeutics) to allow students to complete the entire picture of the clinical encounter at one time and over three semesters. Pharmacology and therapeutics are combined with the clinical

presentation in one semester special topic courses of ‘Women’s Health’, ‘Pediatrics,’ ‘Orthopedics and

Rheumatology,’ and ‘Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Nutrition.’ Additional courses in Imaging Studies, ECG Interpretation, Laboratory Studies, Anatomy and Physiology, and Medical Literature Interpretation and EBM, Procedures, History and Physical Examination, Social and Behavioral Medicine, and Health Care Communication also exist. A clinical integration course focuses on the application of knowledge.

Learning strategies used in courses include the traditional lecture format, basic science laboratory, hybrid, small group tutorials, and patient case discussions. Objectives for each course are consistent with the goals of the Program. Regular patient contact is an important part of the Program. Students begin to see patients during the didactic year. Standardized patient evaluations, through simulation and actors, are also a regular part of the didactic curriculum.

Coursework

Didactic curriculum = 55 credit hours.

Grade Standards

The faculty of record assigns grades for all courses and clinical rotations in the PA curriculum.

(Accreditation Standard A3.15a)

Didactic Year

The following programmatic grading scale will be used:

A92.50-100.00%
A-89.50-92.49%
B+83.00-89.49%
B76.50-82.99%
B-70.00-76.49%

There will be no rounding.