PA Preceptors

In the clinical year, PA students develop patient management skills under the supervision of physicians, physician assistants and other allied health personnel like you. 

• Physicians, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives can precept PA students, in addition to physician assistants, and the experience can be shared within the practice.  The primary preceptor must have at least two years of clinical experience in the specialty. 
• Students are expected to work full time (average of 40 hours each week) plus weekends or on-call when scheduled. 
• They should function with the health care team under the direction of the preceptor, mirroring tasks that are appropriate to the role of a practicing PA.   

To complement our Department’s didactic curriculum, we maintain quality clinical rotations to expose the PA student to a range of common clinical experiences. 

The rotation sequence offers the PA student a variety of practical experiences and promotes the clinical integration of concepts learned in the classroom.  The clinical year constitutes a full-time off-campus experience, which allows PA students to develop their patient management skills under the supervision of physicians, physician assistants and other allied health personnel.

With the increasing number of health care students nationally, we are in need of preceptors and rotation sites to be able to maintain the required available accredited slots for our students.  

We are currently working diligently to recruit clinical rotations for our next class of physician assistant students.  Every May, a new class of 55 physician assistant students begins their clinical year, completing nine five-week rotations, which consist of:

• Behavioral Medicine (5 weeks, inpatient and/or outpatient)
• Emergency Medicine (5 weeks)
• Family Practice (10 weeks, can be split into two 5 week rotations)
• Internal Medicine (5 weeks, inpatient and/or outpatient)
• Pediatrics (5 weeks)
• General Surgery (5 weeks)
• Women’s Health (5 weeks, prenatal and routine GYN care)
• Elective (5 weeks, any specialty)
  
  The PA student should work at least 40 hours per week and multiple providers within the practice can share the responsibility of precepting the student over the course of the rotation. Students are permitted to work with MDs, DOs, PA-Cs, CRNPs and CNMs.  Student objectives for each rotation are available to you upon request.