Research and Presentations in PA school

[CuriousGeorge88]

Are PA students encouraged to do research or required to make presentations? 

 

By "presentation", I don't mean presenting a patient during clinicals. I mean standing in front of a class and presenting some disease or research topic.

 

I heard this is often required in medical school, so now I'm wondering about PA school.

 

Thanks

[cinntsp]

We had to do that several times.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[CuriousGeorge88]

Really? I'm kind of shocked. I didn't think the pace of the program would allow for that being that research and class presentations are so time consuming. Interesting..

[marktheshark89]

Research is integrated throughout our entire currculum and we have a research methods course

[Guest MedLib42]

Yes, very often at my school - I've heard that presentations and research are requirements to meet accreditation standards. We do take a research class, but we have to do research papers for other classes as well. As far as presentations, I have had at least three major ones per semester during class, a few more casual ones that can happen up to weekly for certain classes, then usually at least one of our final exams will include a presentation of some sort. 

 

We have to act out a lot of stuff in front of the class as well - when we do SIM labs or patient communication exercises, people will get chosen to act out a scenario while the rest of the class watches and critiques. That can happen as often as weekly too.

 

During clinicals, we also have to come back to school to give major presentations to the faculty, staff, and students.

 

So yes, my experience so far is that there is a significant amount of presenting at my own school, and I've heard similar stories from students at other schools as well. 

[BARONEUS]

I agree with the above. We had a pharmacology group exercise each semester the first year where we were given a case study, expected to recommend treatment to a panel of MDs and pharmacists to tear apart for 5 minutes. After that and presenting disease processes and case studies to people way smarter than you, presenting becomes as stressful as tying your shoes.

 

 

 

[mulsa]

it has to do many times as we are medical student and must do it weather we want or not . so (curious) why are you asking this type of question? i couldn't understand and PA student encouraged to do some research as well. because they want more information and they have to research it . without researching they can't do any work .so PA student also research. thanks

[iparker]

In the didactic year we've had several presentations. If your public speaking muscles aren't that strong now, don't worry they will be.

[UGoLong]

There are group exercises with presentations throughout and occasionally individual ones as well. In general, they don't involve running experiments but researching topics in the literature.

 

When I was a student, our capstone project involved statistical research and we had our topics approved by the IRB.

[jlumsden]

Presentations of material we studied (e.g. appendicitis during pregnancy, Hispanic health disparities, parasitic infections) were common during my didactic year, but most of the time, they were done as a group.  I think this had something to do with the large size of our class (44).  

 

We did a fair amount of paper writing, but none of it was original research.  It was closer to writing a literature review or a reflective, opinion based essay.  For our Capstone project, we are required to have some creative or original component.  Original research is an option, but we are discouraged from anything requiring extensive data collection, due to the other time constraints of the program.  I am midway through a qualitative project on kidney disease in Central America (during the break between the first and second year).

 

If original research is something you are interested, look at the type of degree being offered.  Many schools require a fairly extensive research project for a Master's of Science, and you will see a PA graduate degree listed as a Master's in Health Services or Master's in Physician Assistant Studies because extensive research is not required.

 

It will differ from school to school.  At any rate, it is an excellent question to ask an admissions counselor when you are looking at schools.