An Investigation of Potential Criteria for Ranking Physician Assistant Programs

Abstract

Master's degree-level physician assistant (PA) programs have been ranked by U.S. News & World Report since 1998. While both the general idea of ranking PA programs and the particular process used have been criticized, there has been no formal study of PA education on the issue. We undertook a survey of PA program directors to identify program characteristics that would best objectify reputations. One hundred and twenty-six program directors were mailed a 75-item survey in the fall of 2000 and 95 responded (75%). The most notable aspect of the survey results was the lack of agreement on what PA program attributes should be measured. The greatest agreement was on faculty-to-student ratio, graduation rate, student attrition rate, and PA National Certifying Examination (PANCE) scores. Agreement was almost unanimous that program rank should not be a component of the accreditation process. In spite of the human need to compare and contrast, there is little agreement among PA program directors on the elements that should be used for a program's ranking. Without near-unanimous support across PA programs for internally developing objective scores for PA ranking, we conclude this aspect of PA education will be left to outside agencies and organizations.