UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences to present physician assistant degrees

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences will confer the Master of Physician Assistant Studies (M.P.A.S.) degree during commencement ceremonies at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 15, in the Alerus Center. Sixty candidates will receive the degree. They are the thirty-seventh class to graduate from the UND Physician Assistant (PA) Program. The graduates participate in a special hooding ceremony on Friday, May 14. The medical school has 1,611 graduates from the PA program.

The Physician Assistant Program is located in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Since its inception in 1970, the PA program has had continuous accreditation by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant. Over the course of the program, students rotate between the classroom on the UND campus in Grand Forks and a physician’s practice (preceptorship) in the student’s home community.

Physician assistants are health professionals who practice medicine collegially with, and under the supervision of, physicians, especially in primary care in rural areas of North Dakota and other rural and underserved areas within the United States. The UND Physician Assistant Program is one of 149 PA programs in the United States and is the only PA program in North Dakota.

Physician assistants assess the health status of individuals of all ages, obtaining a database, which includes a medical history, physical examination and appropriate diagnostic tests. This information is compiled in a problem-oriented medical record. In addition, PAs, in collaboration with their supervising physicians, are prepared to implement, supervise, and evaluate therapeutic protocols for the management of common acute symptoms, chronic stable conditions, and to provide appropriate emergency care services. Program graduates also provide patient and community education to aid in promoting, maintaining and improving health status and to prevent disease.

Robert Beattie, chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine is the interim director of the PA program. Eric Johnson serves as medical director.

— Denis MacLeod, assistant director, Office of Alumni and Community Relations, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, 777-2733, dmacleod@medicine.nodak.edu.