There are many steps to becoming a physician assistant (PA). Here is a simplified outline of the main checkpoints that must be met in order to become a certified PA!
Earn a bachelor’s degree
All PA programs required a bachelor’s degree to be completed by either time of application or time of matriculation. Your undergraduate major can really be anything you would like, as long as you incorporate the required PA program prerequisites into your degree! I suggest choosing a major you are actually interested, and not defaulting to one just because you think it will look good. According to the PAEA, the top 10 most common pre-PA undergraduate majors are biology, health sciences, exercise science, psychology, chemistry, kinesiology, social science, nutrition, neuroscience, and public health.
There are common prerequisite courses required to be completed by PA programs. These requirements can vary from program to program, but the majority include the following: anatomy, biochemistry, general biology, microbiology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, English, genetic, medical terminology, physiology, psychology, and statistics.
Apply to ARC-PA accredited PA programs
In order to sit for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) exam, you must attend an ARC-PA (Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant) accredited PA program. The ARC-PA website states the following regarding PA school accreditation: “If a PA program is accredited by the ARC-PA, it has met the Standards of accreditation that provide the minimum requirements and criteria to which PA programs and their sponsoring institutions are held accountable. As long as you are applying to a program that is ARC-PA accredited, you will be eligible upon graduation to sit for the PANCE offered by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). Passing this exam is required for practice as a PA in all states.”
Applying to PA programs requires multiple factors. CASPA, the Central Application Service for Physician Assistants, is the application portal that the majority of PA programs use. This allows you to complete one main application and submit it to multiple schools. Aside from earning your bachelor’s degree and completing required prerequisites, applicants are often required to complete a certain number of patient care hours, volunteer hours, and shadowing hours. Programs may also have both cumulative and science minimum GPA requirements, specific letter of recommendation requirements, and separate supplemental applications.
Complete the Master of Physician Assistant Studies Program
The next step to becoming a PA is earning a master’s degree from an accredited PA program. Programs range in length from 24 months to 36 months. PA school is divided into 2 main parts: didactic year and clinical year. During didactic year, you attend classes, listen to lectures, take part in labs, take exams (many exams), and learn the information that will prepare you for clinical year. Clinical year consists of attending clinical rotations. The number of rotations and weeks of these rotations differ from program to program. The main clinical rotations students must complete include family medicine, internal medicine, women’s health, surgery, emergency medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Some programs offer elective rotations where you can pick additional areas of medicine to rotate in, such as dermatology, cardiology, neurology, etc.
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Pass the PANCE (Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam)
The following information about the PANCE is taken directly from NCCPA.net: “To be eligible for PANCE, you must graduate from a Physician Assistant program accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA). PA program graduates will be deemed to have graduated from an accredited program if their PA educational program was accredited at the time of their matriculation. Beginning in 2019, there was a new content blueprint released for the PANCE. The content blueprint provides guidance on the information assessed on the PANCE. The examination is categorized in two dimensions:
Knowledge of the diseases and disorders physician assistants encounter
Knowledge and skills related to tasks physician assistants perform when treating patients
The PANCE blueprint medical content categories are as follows:
Cardiovascular System- 13%
Dermatologic System- 5%
Endocrine System- 7%
Eyes, Ears, Nose, Throat- 7%
Gastrointestinal System/Nutrition- 9%
Genitourinary System- 5%
Hematologic System- 5%
Infectious Disease- 6%
Musculoskeletal System- 8%
Neurologic System- 7%
Psychiatry/Behavioral Science- 6%
Pulmonary System- 10%
Renal System- 5%
Reproductive System- 7%
The PANCE blueprint task categories are as follows:
History taking & performing physical examination- 17%
Using diagnostic & lab studies- 12%
Formulating most likely diagnosis- 18%
Health maintenance, patient education, & preventive measures- 10%
Clinical intervention- 14%
Pharmaceutical therapeutics- 14%
Applying basic scientific concepts- 10%
Professional practice- 5%
Maintain certification as a PA-C
Maintaining certification once you are a PA-C includes three main components administered by the NCCPA: continuing medical education (CME), passing the Physician Assistant National Recertification Exam (PANRE) every 10 years, and paying a certification maintenance fee to NCCPA every 2 years. 100 hours of CME are required every 2 years for PA-Cs. CME is divided into category 1 credits and category 2 credits. Category 1 credit “consists of clinical and professional educational activities that serve to maintain, develop or increase the knowledge, skills and professional performance that a PA uses to provide services for patients, the public and the profession. The content of Category 1 CME is the body of knowledge and skills generally recognized and accepted by the profession as within the basic medical sciences, the discipline of clinical medicine and the provision of health care to the public.” Category 2 credit “is elective and must be related to medicine, patient care or other professional issues such as reimbursement and CPT coding. Examples include reading medical journals or texts, attending meetings provided by pharmaceutical companies that are promotional, clinical research on the internet, AAPA HOD, and precepting students.”
The PANRE is a four-hour exam that includes 240 multiple-choice question and more information about it can be found on the NCCPA website.
