rpackelly Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Well, I guess it is officially here...........I think it is interesting that this was released right after the new ARC-PA meeting. Yale is packaging their didactic year online. They hope to enroll 350 students. http://news.yahoo.com/yale-will-offer-web-based-master-of-medical-science-degree-134718343.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paula Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Distance Education was officially here in 2001. I was the first enrollee to UW-Madison's (WI) DE PA program and their first graduate of the program in 2004. It is very successful and has expanded over the last 11 years. Madison's program limits the number of PAs accepted, I think now around 6-10. I spent my first summer on campus taking gross anatomy, PE class and pharmacology. My next two years were spent logging onto the computer and watching the exact same lectures my on-campus counterparts had, except I watched them the following day of the original lecture. By the second year I could watch the lecture within two hours. I visited campus once or twice a semester for on-site labs and patient experiences and was there for 2-3 days depending on what was scheduled...i.e. splinting and casting workshops, suturing, etc. My first two years were part-time and I worked the first year part-time, resigned my job for the second year as it was too intense to try to keep working. My third year was the 2000 hours of clinical rotations that were arranged to be undertaken in the area I lived with the major healthcare facilities in the northwoods of WI. I passed PANCE and PANRE first time. The rates of the DE students passing PANCE is excellent....I think nearly 100%. Yale's program appears to be a little different and more sophisticated technology wise, but they still require some on-campus visits if I read the information correctly. My program was developed to recruit and train qualified applicants who live in rural and underserved areas with the goal of us returning to our home communities as PAs. So far, it has proven to be successful and I believe most of us who have been the UW-Mad's program have returned to our own areas to work. I have worked in two tribal FQHCs in FP and one CAH and rural clinic in the UC dept over my 10 year career. Currently I am working in a new position in IM/FP in a larger town (7,000) closer to home, still rural, and will be precepting some of UW-Mad's DE students once I get my feet on the ground with this new employer. I believe Med Schools will eventually come to the table with similar educational products such as this and will be copying UW-Mad's program and now Yale's. It still may be cost prohibitive for some students to pay for Yale's program. Ouch! I was fortunate that mine was still the BS degree so in-state tuition was reasonable and I came out with only a $22,000 debt which was quickly paid off in 3 years with help of a State pay-back program for working in an underserved area of WI. I later did a Master's completion program in 2012-13. (On-line). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpackelly Posted March 10, 2015 Author Share Posted March 10, 2015 http://www.wsj.com/articles/yale-will-offer-web-based-master-of-medical-science-degree-1425960063 I think the huge difference is the scope. Having Yale take 350 per year and using a corporation to place them in clinical rotations all over the country is a big shift in educational model. I am a fan of online education and direct an online program. That number of students will impact clinical site placement everywhere, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IPA Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Do you know what other Universities are offering accredited online programs? All I could find was Wisconsin. As a current/future applicant, I find this fascinating and it opens up more options for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MPL Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 University of North Dakota is part online and in class. The first 9 months is online including anatomy, physiology,pharm, patho ect. Each semester you have to attend classes on campus for 5 weeks. You do all your clinicals in your home area. There are two tracks to this program for acceptance. One track is for licensed/certified professions like RN,RRT,paramedics with 3 years of clinical experience with BS degree. The other track is science based BS degrees with 1000 HCE. so this program is half online and attending campus. Only other program that I know like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbrothers98 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Not surprising. Higher education limits are basically whom can meet a standard, who can pay and space. Space has always been a limiting factor at PA programs, literally how many people can you cram into one spot. With online streaming, more of a focus on self directed learning and students whom are more comfortable with a nontraditional format of education, the time has come. I think if you poll a majority of PAs and PA students, there will be mixed reviews about the didactic year for many. I can say I spent many lectures with ear plugs in, reading a text especially when the lecturer turned out to be a dud or focused upon how intelligent they were vs actually imparting some information to our class. I have read recent student opinions that at graduation they plan to thank Google and Youtube along with Up to Date for successfully getting them through those 2 years. Put the didactic year into perspective of a 20, 30 or even 40 year career. 12 months in a classroom vs 19+ learning on your own. No reason not to start sooner. Students dont necessarily need a brick and mortar classroom, they need expert direction. In the meantime, the student that has established roots in a community that does not want to pull up and move sometimes 1000s of miles to a program can stay home. Economically for the student it just makes tremendous sense, especially reading some of the descriptions above. Prolly plenty of eligible people whom could become PAs but something stands in their way such as access. This will likely also be a shot in the arm for the clinical site crisis. The organization Yale contracts with to arrange these will likely also offer a stipend to preceptors especially preceptors that are successful. No more rotations that are nothing more than shadowing. No more begging a local busy FP clinic to take a student. Pay them for their time and expertise. Other programs will realize that they cant rely upon the good nature and altruistic sense of preceptors while pocketing student dollars at the same time. G Brothers PA-C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 10, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 10, 2015 not a fan....what's next? arrange your own rotations all with friends/family? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FfIghter23 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 and how do they learn clinical skills? How to perform a physical exam on a real patient? How to suture? They still have to go into school for these labs and such. Basically they are maxing out on the number of students they can collect tuition from and hoping the students are determined enough to learn medicine on their own. It will work for some students. Not all. It's also easier for subpar students to slip through the cracks and make a fool of themselves on rotations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marktheshark89 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 There will be several on campus sessions where students will learn these skills in new haven. The program is applying for a class expansion theough arc-pa, meaning that the curriculum including all hands on experiences must be provided to the distance students as well otherwise it will not be approved by arc-pa and will have to be a new program. The current plan involves students doing a session at the beginning of didactic, end of didactic, and end of clinical years on campus in new haven, as well as the opportunity for students to do rotations at Yale if desired. The immersion experiences will include cadaver dissection, history and physical, clinical skills, standardized patients, etc. Things that do not lend themselves to computer-based learning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SocialMedicine Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 online education means different things to different people. I think of a program called blackboard where you basically communicate through a message board. My mother cannot imagine what an online curriculum looks like. The current generation will likely experience an interactive multimedia education. Could this be more effective than the traditional power point lecture? The lung exam lecture includes pause/rewind and a glossary of terms , and while the faculty member (whom is selected for this task because of his/her skill in communicating the material) is speaking multimedia video/images/powerpoint are flashing across the screen. Perhaps questions will appear throughout the lecture. And when it comes time for case discussions this can be done face to face through the internet. It is an interesting , brave new world in medical education and higher education on a whole. If done right this could have very positive consequences, but I am sure will be met with much criticism until it proves itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 11, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2015 I think I got a lot out of real time discussions during lecture with the faculty. I wouldn't want to write down questions and send them later as email or something. If the lecture was fully interactive in real time that would be better for me or students like me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 11, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2015 how about a pa to doc bridge with no mcats, 1 yr online, and 1 yr clinicals in one's home community then automatic acceptance to affiliated primary care residency....that program I would do....:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkuhns1 Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 If anyone could do it properly, It MIGHT be Yale. That remains to be seen. Nonetheless, I am more concerned about the potential precedent. Who will be next in line, University of Phoenix, or Kaplan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 11, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2015 I know the founder of the Yale PA program very well. We worked together for several years. I will have to ask him how he feels about this when I see him at aapa in may. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickitabanana Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 EMEDPA please do and share his feelings to the rest of us. I would be very interested to see what he thinks about this. I am a Yale alumna and am planning to go to the meeting scheduled to discuss this at the PA program in New Haven on Thursday. I personally don't approve, nor do any of my classmates and alumni from classes below and above me. Having experienced the rigorous offline Yale curriculum I don't see how any online program, however good, can replicate the education I received. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 EMEDPA please do and share his feelings to the rest of us. I would be very interested to see what he thinks about this. I am a Yale alumna and am planning to go to the meeting scheduled to discuss this at the PA program in New Haven on Thursday. I personally don't approve, nor do any of my classmates and alumni from classes below and above me. Having experienced the rigorous offline Yale curriculum I don't see how any online program, however good, can replicate the education I received. As long as it replicates the $$$... Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sillycibin Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 And I was worried about the rampant growth of PA programs just popping up like weeds saturating the market. The increase in the number of schools by like 50% in ten years or so is nothing compared to how existing programs will be able to increase capacity (and revenue the real driver) by 9 fold like Yale plans to. I already have my hospital system trying to treat PAs like nurses: interchangeable and disposable. I really had an administrator talk to me about floating PAs among different divisions to help cover shortages of manpower. Sure, send that diabetes team PA over to our trauma service... Wait until there are is a glut tipping the balance of power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PACdan Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 Regardless of how well students can learn medicine from this model, I hate to hear the associations that will come with it. "Oh a PA is just an online degree, etc, etc." Even though there are plenty of NP programs with didactic portions online, somehow it will get spun against PAs (and not NPs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 12, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 12, 2015 And I was worried about the rampant growth of PA programs just popping up like weeds saturating the market. The increase in the number of schools by like 50% in ten years or so is nothing compared to how existing programs will be able to increase capacity (and revenue the real driver) by 9 fold like Yale plans to. I already have my hospital system trying to treat PAs like nurses: interchangeable and disposable. I really had an administrator talk to me about floating PAs among different divisions to help cover shortages of manpower. Sure, send that diabetes team PA over to our trauma service... Wait until there are is a glut tipping the balance of power. yup, this is a big problem. many big systems already think the 10 yr specialty pa is interchangeable with the new grad across services. this is why we need to distinguish ourselves through higher academic standards(yup, degree creep), postgrad training(yup, residencies) and more certification exams(yup, CAQs). not getting on board with any of these is not an option. that ship has already sailed. we need the doctorate to be competitive against dnps and the additional training and certs to distinguish ourselves as specialists in our fields. the days of lateral mobility and the generalist pa are coming to a close. credentialing bodies and hospitals are forcing that change. they say an EM PA must be able to do xyz and a peds PA must be able to do abc and neither abc, nor xyz can be done by a new grad today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickitabanana Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 Here is the article on the Yale News website: http://news.yale.edu/2015/03/10/yale-launch-its-first-national-online-pa-program?utm_source=YNemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ynalumni-03-10-15 For those of you who argue it will be beneficial to those who cannot afford PA school, the article states "In creating this opportunity, the PA program would allow students to receive the same high-quality training as their on-campus counterparts at an equivalent cost without having to relocate." This implies the same price tag of approximately $80,000 for tuition over the course of 27 months will still be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sushi Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 I was just accepted this app cycle. This post is extremely off-putting. I poured all of myself into getting into PA school. I have so much respect for this profession. But this post makes me feel as if anyone will be able to get into PA school if they just apply. I feel as if my efforts were a waste. Yale is pressing the self destruct button for the profession. I can hear other programs saying, "If Yale can do it, why don't we?" I really hope other PA programs do not follow suite just to make an extra buck. Why haven't medical schools followed this new model? If they did, you wouldn't hear people say how hard it is to get into med school! It seems like we all can foreshadow some of possible negative effects this decision will make towards the respect for the PA profession. (Increase in students=decrease in quality of students). How, as a community, can we expect to maintain the respect for this profession if we start to let everyone in? Should I bail a possibly sinking ship? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PACdan Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 So Yale's yet-to-be, inaugural online PA class is expected to be 12 students, but they're already talking about enrolling up to 300+ within five years? Hubris. Quite frankly that statement seems entirely motivated by money, especially since the $83,000 price tag stays the same. I really hope the ARC-PA doesn't allow this. Can we call/write them on the issue? I could understand a limited online class size, eventually matching the same class size as the on-campus cohorts (40)... but 300+ just for online? We should not be taking leaps like that unless medical schools are doing the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FfIghter23 Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 I was just accepted this app cycle. This post is extremely off-putting. I poured all of myself into getting into PA school. I have so much respect for this profession. But this post makes me feel as if anyone will be able to get into PA school if they just apply. I feel as if my efforts were a waste. Yale is pressing the self destruct button for the profession. I can hear other programs saying, "If Yale can do it, why don't we?" I really hope other PA programs do not follow suite just to make an extra buck. Why haven't medical schools followed this new model? If they did, you wouldn't hear people say how hard it is to get into med school! It seems like we all can foreshadow some of possible negative effects this decision will make towards the respect for the PA profession. (Increase in students=decrease in quality of students). How, as a community, can we expect to maintain the respect for this profession if we start to let everyone in? Should I bail a possibly sinking ship? Many med schools do not have required attendance. Most upload the recordings onto a site for replay. They admit 250 students and only 100 will show up for morning classes. What is concerning to me is programs going to a distance learning system and admitting >200 or even >300 students are going to take up MANY rotation sites in places that their school is not located. In the northeast, there are already too many PA schools compared to the rest of the country and rotation sites are becoming thin. How will they guarantee rotation sites in your current city? They can't. And as a student you will probably be footing the bill for your travel and lodging costs for several rotations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SocialMedicine Posted March 12, 2015 Share Posted March 12, 2015 online education in my opinion is often inferior to an in person experience ..... wait and see what this program looks like before final verdicts are issued ..... i would imagine before a University, which clearly does not need another 40 student PA tuition to make bank, approves this type of program there is some quality assurance. What is the purpose of the program ? Who wants this type of education ? Does it have the power to go international and influence health in places such as Africa and the UK where the PA profession is slowly growing ? I am all about commenting on this as it is very controversial but before we sell out the program (which has a strong reputation) lets see what this looks like in 2-3 years. Already several PA and NP programs have an online format for didactic experience. Medical schools record lectures and do not mandate attendance. I remember an NPR focused on Wayne or Wright University which highlighted a student who said she never actually attended class just listened at home. This does not seem to be some University putting lectures online. This is a company that is publicly traded and seems to have the funding to design a quality program. I think the profession needs to recognize doctoral education, online education, and program expansion are all going to happen. We need to control and tread carefully. BTW sorry to change topic whatever happened to that doctoral PA school ? I think they gave up on the degree based on web site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted March 12, 2015 Moderator Share Posted March 12, 2015 nope the DPAM is still a go, but it is a postgrad option, not entry level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.