Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Symposium on Health Care Education Reform

As a member of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center, I am going to post a short blurb on an upcoming event for the center. We are having a Symposium for Health Education Reform on 4-26 through 4-28.

What says the medical blogging community, Happy?

What changes would you like to see in medical student education?

NP/PA Education?

Nursing Education?

Any ideas?

This should be an outstanding event with leaders and educators from around the country gathering here in Rochester. Hopefully the information and discussion will yield some important recommendations from the Center itself. I know that one topic, at least, will be the reform of medical student education to more of a "Team" based model, rather than the traditional physician centric model that has been used for decades.

Thoughts?

More info, HERE!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you please separate Nurse Practitioners from PA in your blog. You are comparing apples to oranges and doing a disservice to Nurse Practitioner in general. They are independent, licensed, Practitioners that should never be mistakenly compared to PA.
Thank you

The Happy Hospitalist said...

Changes in medical student education?

Remind me again why does it needs to be changed?

Anonymous said...

I think medical school education and nursing education is well structured. The pa programs need to raise their entry requirement beyond HS diploma and add some health care experience before being accepted.

Anonymous said...

PA schools are all "over the place" as far as their education goes. I think they going down "a very dangerous road" with the proposed name change. "Do they really think" that there schooling prepares them to be equal to Physicians? "I'll tell you what", if their willing to pass MCAT,earn a BS degree, be accepted and attend 4 years of medical school go to a residency then I'd...wait that would be a Physician not an assistant.

Michael Halasy said...

Anon, you apparently have little idea of what you speak.

PA programs are accredited by ONE body, NP's are not.

PA's take their boards EVERY six years, NP's do not.

MOST PA programs require at least 4000 hours of prior HCE, and I agree that it should be strengthened. BUT, many NP programs do not require any, and many are combined RN/NP programs with NO work experience as an RN required.

NP's are NOT independent in every state, only 27 IIRC, I know that they are NOT here in Minnesota.

NP's have no central national accrediting body, they have vastly different requirements to be certified depending on which state you reside in.

Many NP programs are offered ONLINE. This is scandalous, and dangerous for patients.

Many NP programs only require 600-800 clinical hours....???

In my program way back, I did over 2500 clinical hours, and I had a boatload of experience as a corpsman in the first party over in Kuwait.

Where did I EVER state that PA's are "equal" to physicians? HUH? The name change simply reflects PA's working as COLLEAGUES with physicians, not equals.

I would be more than happy to separate NP's from PA's, because to be honest, PA's recieve a superior education. I still, however think of NP's as colleagues. I was just recently involved in the hiring of one.

Anecdotally, I have worked with, and supervised both NP's and PA's. With the exception of one outstanding NP, who is really phenomenal, the new graduate PA's tend to function in the ED with much greater ease, and tend to pick up things faster than the new graduate NP's. That's just an anecdotal observation.

I'm trying to fight for our rights collaboratively as a group, but IF you would like me to not discuss NP's when policy discussions are going on, I would be more than happy to oblige.

Anonymous said...

PHYASST, that prior HCE for entry into PA programs could be...lab tech, Resp Tech, ect. I think you'd agree that this is not real world HCE.

Anonymous said...

File this in the "Its about time" file. The PAEA has finally made a Master's degree the entry level education level for PAs. Good bye certificates, diplomas, Bachelors degrees and *online PA programs. They also recommend that Masters be PA terminal degree and that MD be pursued if further education was desired. The Masters would be a Masters in Physician Assistant Studies or MPAS. (*A.T.Stills online PA program, North Dakota online program,Drexel online entry level PA program and others) This is another "WIN WIN' for PAs.

Anonymous said...

I agree with PAEA that a clinical doctorate for a PA is not logical at best and senseless at the least. As before, if the more talented and brighter PAs can meet the Medical School entry requirements then that should be the "pathway" for them NOT a clinical doctorate.