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Research Geared Toward PA Educators

 It’s a busy time of year — but not too busy for you to take a few minutes to get up-to-date on a sleigh full of information and data geared toward PA educators. The December 2018 issue of the Journal of Physician Assistant Education (JPAE) is now available online and may already be in your mailbox. Below we highlight a few articles and provide a brief synopsis of what you will find inside this latest issue.

A Method to Study the Effect of a Physician Assistant Student on Preceptor Productivity
Finding clinical preceptors is something that most programs struggle with — one of the top reasons why is fear of decreased productivity while having a student on service. This pilot study aims to evaluate the effect of a PA student on clinical productivity.

Citation and Characteristic Analysis of Physician Assistant Programs Placed on Accreditation-Probation, 2015–2017
During this study timeframe, 11% of PA programs were placed on accreditation-probation. The authors distill down the most common reasons why to help other programs avoid a similar fate in the future.

Filling the Gaps: Predicting Physician Assistant Students’ Interest in Practicing in Medically Underserved Areas
PAs are well suited to practice in medically underserved areas and provide much needed care to vulnerable populations. This article looks at the student characteristics that were associated with a higher interest in practicing in these areas and could help programs select applicants that can meet their programmatic mission.

Veterans Health Administration’s Physician Assistant Primary Care Residency: An Evaluation of the First 3 Years
Postgraduate residencies are becoming more and more prevalent as students seek additional training before joining the medical workforce. This report describes the Veterans Administration’s (VA) outcomes of their one-year primary care residency and how it can help meet the needs of the aging PA workforce in the VA system.

Clinical Reasoning and Knowledge Organization: Bridging the Gap Between Medical Education and Neurocognitive Science
If you have ever wanted to know how neurocognitive science can be used to evaluate knowledge organization within the domain of medical education, this article is for you. This study breaks down the science of learning and how clinicians organize information to become better diagnosticians.

This is only a sampling of what you’ll find in the December 2018 edition of JPAE. To stay informed, check out these articles and others in the latest issue. And be sure to follow us on our social media platforms as well as the #JPAE on our article posts.