The Doctoral Pipeline in Physician Assistant Education

Abstract

The significant and recent increase in the number of physician assistant (PA) programs, accompanied by the rise in the number of programs awarding a master’s degree, has had a continued effect on the availability of appropriately prepared PA program faculty members.1,2 The advent of master’s degree curricula, requiring the completion of a master’s degree project or thesis, established the need for student research supervision by faculty, who themselves often feel unprepared for the task. Additionally, all academic institutions and most regional accrediting agencies require faculty members to be academically credentialed at the same or higher level than the attending student population. This requirement continues to pressure current faculty members to obtain higher degrees.2 Experience in research and publication activities by PA faculty lags behind their experience with teaching and service, hampering their ability to meet the demands of the institution as well as the curricular responsibilities in master’s degree-awarding programs.3,4 In a 1999 review of the outcomes of a 1986 Association of Physician Assistant Programs (APAP) project designed to develop a vision statement about the PA of the future, Blessing reiterated that project’s recommendations for PA educational institutions in terms of faculty characteristics.5 Two of these recommendations suggested that programs “support and encourage the pursuit of higher degrees (master’s and doctorate level) by their faculty” and that faculty should “upgrade ... academic preparedness in order to teach proposed new ... curriculum.” No study to date has explored the extent to which programs support faculty in such pursuits, nor has the motivation of individual faculty members to upgrade been examined.5 The Sixteenth Annual Report on Physician Assistant Educational Programs in the United States, 1999-2000 noted that of PA faculty serving in roles other than that of program director, 55% had master’s Venetia L. Orcutt, MBA, PA-C, is program director of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Alice Hildebrand, BS, is a student in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. P. Eugene Jones, PhD, PA-C, is chair of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.