agregory00 Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 After doing a search of the forum I could not find any information on this particular topic. If it has already been discussed and I am simply missing it I apologize and would gladly appreciate a link to direct me to the discussion. Upon researching several program curriculums, I have noticed that each is different in terms of type of classes offered (perhaps just a different name) and credit hours (say 110hrs vs 145hrs). My question is whether or not this matters? I have interviewed at 2 schools. School A is a brand new program (Provisional Accreditation until March 2013)in the second year of operation. School B is well established and had a 100% PANCE pass rate of 1st time takers for their class of 2012. School A's curriculum seems to differ greatly from School B's in number of credit hours and various courses offered. I understand that in order to be granted provisional accreditation that standards set by the ARC-PA have to be met, but I am wondering if all programs have to teach the same academic courses (they just have different names) or can they just have similar classes and decide not to include specific topics. Sorry if this seems like a no brainer but School B offers several extra classes such as EKG reading and radiology as individual classes. Im just wondering if School A has just incorporated these topics into another course as opposed to offering them individually. Are there some schools that offer curriculums that exceed the standard requirements set by the ARC-PA? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question. In light of learning about some pa programs having their accreditation removed this year, I thought it would be safer to ask than worry. I greatly appreciate your thoughts and advice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted August 14, 2012 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2012 I think the difference between the different programs is really more about the quality AND AVAILABILITY of good rotation sites than the didactics. a lot of first yr is self taught so any school will do but bad sites and bad preceptors is a major problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator True Anomaly Posted August 14, 2012 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2012 Agree with E- the most variability is in the rotations. That being said, programs have to teach similar concepts, but are free to structure it how they see fit. There are directives as to specific topics, but those are related to issues such as billing/coding/charting, critically evaluating medical literature, promoting public health, and even the history of the PA profession. The ARC-PA publishes their accreditation standards on their website, and if you go to page 13 of this document it shows just how specific or general those standards are: http://www.arc-pa.org/documents/Standards4theditionwithclarifyignchanges10.2011fnl.pdf In my own experience, this results in slight variations in programs with the students whom I precept. Since I practice emergency medicine, I'm more keenly aware of which students are better prepared for the ER environment from their didactic phase in school (most, if not all, have no experience in ER prior to school). While I'm completely aware of the underlying focus of PA programs is to prepare a practitioner to function in primary care FIRST and transition to other specialties SECOND, this is one little example where variability between programs is great- there's nothing that says programs have to have an "ER block" which focuses on specific topics (although if any educators want to correct me on whether an ARC-PA site visit would ding a program if they didn't have ER curriculum, please do so). I know that my own program's ER block was very poor and wasn't adequate (in my opinion) to allow one to know where to go with their self-directed learning if they wanted to start practicing in the ER. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 I wouldn't want to drop 75k to be a guinea pig that helps to work out the kinks in a new program but that's just me. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator EMEDPA Posted August 14, 2012 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2012 we had a didactic er course with an er procedures lab and optional acls. at the time I thought that was standard but apparently many programs don't do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenmood Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 Not sure. We were all required to take and pass ACLS as part of our ER course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agregory00 Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 Thank you for all the information and advice. I appreciate it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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