Springfield, MO., April 12, 2023-Drury University is proud to announce its new Physician Assistant Studies program was granted Accreditation-Provisional status by ARC-PA (the independent accrediting body for PA programs in the U.S.).
Accreditation-Provisional status is granted by the ARC-PA board to new programs that meet their high professional standards for PA education. Accreditation-Provisional is an accreditation status granted when the plans and resource allocation, if fully implemented as planned, of a proposed program that has not yet enrolled students appear to demonstrate the program’s ability to meet the ARC-PA Standards or when a program holding Accreditation-Provisional status appears to demonstrate continued progress in complying with the Standards as it prepares for the graduation of the first class (cohort) of students.
“The newly accredited PA program is the first graduate-level clinical licensure program for the university and will provide needed educational experiences for students from across the country pursuing a career as a physician assistant,” said Beth Harville, executive vice president and provost. “We look forward to these students engaging with our local community while studying at Drury and hope they stay in Southwest Missouri to fill positions in our hospitals and clinics.”
Drury’s Physician Assistant Program offers a 27-month master’s degree of physician assistant studies that begins with classroom and laboratory instruction, followed by clinical rotations in behavioral medicine, emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, surgery, and two elective rotations.
New faculty members were hired from across the country to teach in the program and two additional learning spaces were created. The first is a cadaver lab in the Trustee Science Center. The lab can house eight cadavers and will be overseen by a newly hired anatomist. The second space is at Cox North, where a postoperative ICU unit was rehabilitated into a classroom, seven problem-based learning rooms and a physical diagnosis laboratory.
“The Drury University PA Program is designed to accomplish two objectives – to develop students into excellent healthcare practitioners and to be leaders in the physician assistant profession,” said Kathleen Flach, director of PA studies. Our students can expect their education to prepare them for their next step in life as clinicians while also providing them with opportunities to develop leadership skills to represent the profession at the local, state, and national level.”
Drury’s inaugural cohort of 30 students is now full and will begin classes in August 2023. There is currently an active waiting list where potential students can still apply. Plans are in place to offer 40 seats to the cohort starting in fall 2024.
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Media Contact: Jasmine Cooper, Director of University Communications and Media Relations – (417) 873-7390 or JCooper020@drury.edu.
