A hospitalist postgraduate training program for physician assistants

Abstract

Many hospitalist groups are hiring physician assistants (PAs) to augment their physician services. Finding PAs with hospitalist experience is difficult. Employers often have to recruit PAs from other specialties or hire new graduates who have limited hospital experience. Furthermore, entry-level PA training focuses on primary care, with more clinical rotations centered in the outpatient setting. In light of these challenges, our institution created a 12-month postgraduate training program in Hospital Medicine for 1 PA per year. It is the first reported postgraduate PA hospitalist fellowship to offer a certificate of completion. The program's curriculum is based on the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) "Core Competencies," and is comprised of 12 one-month rotations in different aspects of hospital medicine supplemented by formal didactic instruction. In addition, the PA fellow completes "teaching modules" on various topics not directly covered in their rotations. Furthermore, this postgraduate physician assistant training program represents a model that can be utilized at almost any institution, academic or community-based. As the need for hospitalists increases, so will the need for trained physician assistants in hospital medicine.