One by one, men and women slipped on their pristine white medical coats.
The 18 students had gathered inside Richardson Chapel on Franklin College’s campus, standing in front of their professors, representatives from the local medical community, college administrators, parents and friends. By donning the traditional white jacket that doctors wear, the students were transitioning from one role to the next.
No longer was their journey to become physician assistants going to be restricted to the classroom. Now, they would be practicing medicine for real.
“Now you’re ready to move on into clinicals and really make your mark professionally as you move forward,” said Thomas Meehan, founding program director and assistant professor of physician assistant studies at Franklin College.
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The group is the first class of students in Franklin College’s physician assistant studies program. The White Coat Ceremony, held at the college on Dec. 13, marked their completion of a year of the didactic, or teaching, phase of their master’s degree program.
Starting in January, the students will work alongside physicians and care for patients.
For the students, as well as all of those involved in Franklin College’s newest master’s degree program, it was an important milestone.
“At this point, you’ve been filled with all of the information on how to treat patients, all sorts of conditions, head to toe. As you begin clinical rotations, the hands-on experience that you get will guide your interactions with patients as professionals for the rest of your career,” said Thomas Minar, president of Franklin College.
Physician assistants, or PAs, are licensed medical providers who practice medicine under a collaboration with a physician. They can order medical tests, do procedures such as suturing, and order medications for patients.
They diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans and often serve as a patient’s principal healthcare provider, according to the American Academy of PAs.
PAs are not as common in Indiana as in other parts of the country. The national average is 36 PAs per 100,000 people, whereas Indiana’s rate is 19.5 PAs per 100,000 people.
In rural counties, PAs are even scarcer; 66 percent of those counties in Indiana have no or only one PA in operation.
“Looking at the fabric of health care in the state and where practitioners are, there are a lack of PA and access to care in many rural and underserved areas of the state,” Meehan said. “Where we’re positioned in the state, I think we can produce graduates that can go out and make the difference.”
Franklin College’s journey to adding a physician assistant studies program started in 2014. The school was awarded a $1 million Lilly Endowment grant, as part of its Initiative to Promote Opportunities Through Educational Collaborations program.
The idea was to help colleges and universities work with private businesses to increase the workforce in Indiana.
“The administration at Franklin College looked and saw healthcare as a need in Indiana. There is a need for providers, and when they looked at it, they saw (physician assistants) would be a good fit,” Meehan said.
The accreditation process for the physician assistant master’s program was delayed, and even once it started, was lengthy, involving an application process and site visit, Meehan said.
Franklin College was given provisional accreditation for its program in fall 2018, and its first cohort of students started in January.
The program is the second master’s track that Franklin College pursued, after starting a degree program in athletic training in 2016.
The master’s program is 25 months long, starting with didactic phase done in teaching labs and simulations. Students learned the wealth of knowledge needed to provide primary medical care, a process that was overwhelming in its breadth.
“Basically, you’re going head to toe looking at all aspects of medicine,” Meehan said. “They’ve done everything, every body system you could think of: pulmonary, cardiac, orthopedics, endocrine, (gastro-intestinal). Everything that they need to diagnose, they’ve learned about the condition.”
The process could be overwhelming in its breadth. During the White Coat Ceremony, Kate Arnold, president of her class of PA students, described feeling like an impostor for the first few weeks of classes, sure that she had mistakenly been accepted into the program.
“I soon realized I wasn’t the only one feeling like an impostor,” she said. “As we finally started to get the hang of being PA students and the impostor syndrome started to go away, we were continually pushed out of our comfort zones, learning physical exam skills and clinical medicine.”
Moving forward, the students will be doing clinical rotations with a physician, licensed PA or nurse practitioner, someone who will mentor them through seeing real patients, Meehan said.
“Over the next year, they’re getting almost 1,750 to 1,800 clinical hours of practical experience,” he said. “It’s really a full-time situation.”
Once students graduate from the program, they can take the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination and become licensed as a physician assistant in any state.
Franklin College’s current students are halfway through their journey. Though the road ahead will have its challenges, it is still a time of great achievement, Minar said during the White Coat Ceremony.
“It’s all about you. It’s a great moment of excitement as we gather trustees, college leadership and other constituents from around our community, and your faculty, to celebrate this,” he said.
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Franklin College physician assistant studies program
What is it? A master’s degree program preparing students to be PAs, or physician assistants.
What is a PA? A medical professional who diagnoses illness, develops and manages treatment plans, prescribes medications, and often serves as a patient’s principal healthcare provider.
When did it begin? The first class of Franklin College students entered the program in January 2019.
How many? The current cohort includes 18 students
What does the program consist of? The 25-month program starts with 12 months of didactic, or teaching, instruction done in a classroom or simulation lab. The final portion of the degree program includes practicing clinical medicine on real patients in a health-care setting.
Information: franklincollege.edu/academics/graduate-programs/master-science-physician-assistant
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