Number of students per preceptor on clinical rotations?

[Chel123]

 

Curious about other PA programs. For those in clinical rotations in PA school, how many other students (if any) are you grouped with for 1 preceptor? Or are you responsible for figuring out your rotations altogether?

I go to a “newer” PA program. On some of these rotations, we have 5+ students being matched with 1 preceptor. The preceptor can’t take more than 1 student at a time so basically the remaining 4 or so students have to figure it out from there. Like talk to nurses and doctors they see and ask if they can help out so they can get the experience they need (required to see a required type and number of procedures, disorders, fractures, etc as outlined by the program). 

I’m just wondering if this is the norm. I could’ve sworn when I was going to other schools open houses, they mentioned having 1-2 students per preceptor. However when a student asked about this to the program director in class, the director said we shouldn’t expect to get our hand held throughout clinicals and that this is how all PA programs do it. 

Thanks for any insight! 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Chel123
Emphasize q

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

Old man perspective and a “Get off my lawn” attitude, but back in the stone-age of the early 80’s with a class size of 23 for our second year, we would have 4-5 students in our class on a core rotation (Surg, Peds, IM, FM, OBG) but never more than one at a time assigned to a “team” (resident, PGY1, MS3 or MS4).  We weren’t assigned preceptors.  We were assigned patients by the team and expected to perform to/exceed the standard for the MS.  In the event that we had an off campus rotation in IM or FM, we were the only student there.

With the gazillion programs out there now and class sizes exceeding 10K per year per program (OK, maybe a tad high), it shouldn’t be the student’s responsibility to find a rotation/preceptor.  That’s what the program/rotation director is there for.

Edited March 27, 2021 by GetMeOuttaThisMess

[ANESMCR]

No that is not the norm. Sounds awful.

[EMEDPA]

The only rotation I was on with other students was internal medicine, and as mentioned above, each person had their own patients and was expected to round on them, follow their labs and diagnostic studies, etc and present to the whole group at morning table rounds over breakfast when the chief resident arrived. 

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

We would have more than one on trauma surgery and on inpatient rounds in FM, but otherwise one on one. Even when we had more than one, we would have our own patients that we followed like EMEDPA had. Never heard of a preceptor having more than 2 anywhere on our rotations. 

[Chel123]

Oh man, this is what I feared. The program costs over $90K in total and we only have 30 in our cohort so I don’t get why it’s being done this way either. 

We thought maybe it was COVID-related but when the student suggested this, the director said not at all/this is how they do it and at least had told us that it was the norm 

 

Thanks everyone for answering!

 

[rev ronin]

I never had more than 2 students total per preceptor.  Definitely had a lot of students on inpatient/general surgery teaching hospital rotation, from multiple schools, but we had 1-2 per team and were peers with the med students.

Outpatient IM, I end up splitting a one provider clinic's patients with OMS-3, but that was about right for two of us to split everything.

One of my rural rotations I was the only student provider of any sort at a critical access hospital, so I got to help with whatever came in... but nothing hardly ever did.

[greenmood]

It depended on the rotation, for me (this was 2012-2013). On my OB/WH rotation there were easily a dozen of us in that little clinic, taking turns seeing patients and doing Paps and generally being treated like shit. But only myself and the one other PA student (the rest were MS) had appropriate paperwork at the hospitals, so we were the only ones delivering and scrubbing. There was one other MS and a handful of actual PGY1 residents I was thrown in with on one of my hospital IM rotations. I got to teach them how to draw a blood gas (which I had never done before either). One other student on my infectious disease elective, one other student in surgery (but I was always the only OR assistant). I was alone for peds and family med, alone for my hospitalist elective.

So a mixed bag.

Edited March 28, 2021 by greenmood

[ANESMCR]

As others have eluded to, I had two rotations I was with other students which was psych and gen surg. Psych we were paired up doing hour long consults ie one typing the note while the other interviews. Surg the other student was on a completely different service in the same hospital. The rest was one on one. I have a feeling ARC-PA may penalize your school for their rotation structure based on your description. 

[UGoLong]

It's been several years but I was usually one-on-one with a preceptor. My OB rotation required me to split days with an NP student but I still got to see a lot on my days. In pediatrics, I was on an in-patient service with lots of other students (MD, pharm) but I was the only PA and had my own patients.

It sounds like your program is going through some growing pains. If they have provisional accreditation, they may get some questions at their next review.

[Student0024]

Currently in clinicals, usually it's just me one on one with a preceptor, but sometimes there is another student. 2-3 students at one clinical site has not been bad at all - I don't ever feel like I'm competing or not getting to do something

[CAAdmission]

On 3/29/2021 at 9:09 AM, ANESMCR said:

 I have a feeling ARC-PA may penalize your school for their rotation structure based on your description. 

They could, but they tend to never hear about things like this. Program do all kinds of shady things. 

[hmtpnw]

Yeah, this is bad. Currently in clinicals. Almost always 1 student per preceptor. Occasionally I have been with a medical student as well, but only when I’ve been on larger academic teams in an inpatient setting. In those instances, I still carried my own patients and it never compromised my experience. 

[TeddyRucpin]

Sounds shady. Programs are going to try to blame some of this on COVID; however, this could be business as usual.

[ohiovolffemtp]

From what I was told when I was in PA school, ARC-PA required schools to find rotations for all of their students and could not require students to find their own.  As others have said, for almost all of my rotations, I was the only one with my preceptor for most of my rotations.  A few times, e.g. a few days in my gen surg, and a few in OB  there was also a med student.  Neither I nor anyone else in my class of 40 was part of a large group during their clinicals.