80 new PA programs scheduled to open by mid 2016

[polarbebe]

"Eighty new PA programs are scheduled to open by mid 2016. These programs will need PA faculty, clinical sites and preceptors so think about going into academia or precepting for your future peers and their patients."

80 new PA programs scheduled to open by mid 2016 (all of which may not), according to the AAPA Facebook page posted yesterday. ARC-PA lists there are currently 170 accredited PA programs.

 

Some respondents to this post raised concern for oversaturating the market and depressing wages in certain geographic markets. I can say NYC has depressed wages with 18 PA programs in the state (last time I checked), more than any other state. There is obviously, a huge shortage of providers and 1 resource listed approximately 350 NP programs nationwide (not sure if it is correct)... so it would appear PA programs have plenty room to expand in comparison.

 

What do people think as the outlook in 10 years? 20 years?

 

Will it become very difficult for new graduates in 15 years to get a job without previous experience and likely require the new graduate to attend a residency/attain CAQ certification prior to obtaining a full-time position (also when expansion of PA/NP programs continues at a high rate)? Maybe an imperfect comparison would be some new RNs currently unable to find work due to inexperience.

[meyerkl]

There is a post about this in the pre-PA forum. It is definitely something to think about. I'm a bit concerned about the pay decreasing and the number of jobs out there. Right now there are 7 PA programs within 1.5 hours of me. I have already heard from local PAs that they are having trouble switching specialties because of fewer jobs and the fact that newer grads are always willing to take the same spots for less pay. I'm hoping the AAPA responds to some of the concerns out there and takes them into consideration when it comes to creating so many new programs.

[BroncoPAS]

Here is a list of some of the programs in question:

 

 

AR University of Arkansas

CA Chapman University

CA Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science #

CA Southern California College of Optometry

FL Adventist University of Health Sciences - Orlando

FL Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine

FL University of South Florida (Tampa)

IA St Ambrose University

IL Governors State University

IL Robert Morris University

IN University of Evansville

KS University of Saint Mary

KY Sullivan University

MA Boston University School of Medicine

MA MGH Institute of Health Professions

MI Eastern Michigan University

MI University of Michigan (Flint)

MN Bethel University

MN College of St. Scholastica

MO University of Missouri - Kansas City, School of Medicine

NC Gardner Webb University

NC High Point University

NC Lenoir-Rhyne University

NC Saint Augustine College

NC University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill

NE College of Saint Mary

NJ Monmouth University

NY Marist College

NY Mount Saint Mary College

OH Baldwin Wallace University

OH Lake Erie College

OH Ohio State University

OH Ohio University

OH University of Dayton

PA Mercyhurst University

PA Penn State University College of Medicine

PA Thomas Jefferson University

RI Bryant University

RI Johnson & Wales University

TN University of Tennessee Health Science Center (Memphis)

TX University of Mary Hardin Baylor

UT Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (program has not been aproved by NWCCU)

VA Emory and Henry College

VA Lynchburg College

VA Mary Baldwin College

VT College of St. Joseph

WA Heritage University

WI Concordia University

 

 

http://www.arc-pa.com/provisional_acc/applicant_programs.html

[primadonna22274]

And still only one program in SC. Nuts.

[maryfran123]

great just what we need, another PA program in the philadelphia area (*sarcasm intended!)

[SocialMedicine]

this is AWFUL news ...... schools that have NO BUSINESS creating medicine practitioners are setting up PA schools for the money ... they could care less about the profession .... absolute disaster .... here is to another 80 low caliber programs with small faculty number and 0 intellectual contribution to medicine or PA's (correction: I am sure some of these programs will be strong. However a PA school in the middle of nowhere has ALOT of obstacles to becomes a great program. ALSO by saying that the contribution will be low .. I mostly mean, what i have said many times over, that we need to grow our current programs in order to cultivate our profession) . The faculty at these programs will be too busy managing there students to grow our profession. Who approves these programs? Why cant we control our profession like MDs do and make our salary/career prospects brighter. This report makes me very disappointed. With MD and NP enrollment expanding .... and this HUGE increase in PA schools I foresee the quality of applicants decline DRAMATICALLY. In 20 years I predict the PA degree is like the JD .... you almost feel bad for people studying law these days in schools outside the top 10 .... huge debt .... low salaries ..... not much respect or opportunity .... That will be the PA degree in a few years ..... Watch schools start getting greedier and set up online programs and keep expanding enrollment (oh wait some are doing that already). Another 2 million in PA tuition helps build an expanded dorm for a college Dean and makes his tenure brighter .... He cannot expand in other degrees because nobody wants them ... They have become worthless in an over degree'd society suffocating with student loan debt to satisfy the higher education industry. This concerns me MUCH MORE than a patient now knowing what a PA is. You can call me ASSISTANT SocialMedicine all day long as work .... just do not degrade my profession and employment prospects. AAPA MUST RESPOND.

[cinntsp]

There goes some of the NP-bashing ammo out the window... ;)

[physasst]

There is a post about this in the pre-PA forum. It is definitely something to think about. I'm a bit concerned about the pay decreasing and the number of jobs out there. Right now there are 7 PA programs within 1.5 hours of me. I have already heard from local PAs that they are having trouble switching specialties because of fewer jobs and the fact that newer grads are always willing to take the same spots for less pay. I'm hoping the AAPA responds to some of the concerns out there and takes them into consideration when it comes to creating so many new programs.

 

Remember that the AAPA is an advocacy and membership organization that does not set up, accredit, or endorse programs. It is the PAEA and the ARC-PA that are in charge of that.....just for clarity's sake.

[meyerkl]

Remember that the AAPA is an advocacy and membership organization that does not set up, accredit, or endorse programs. It is the PAEA and the ARC-PA that are in charge of that.....just for clarity's sake.

 

 

Whoops I wrote that on my phone and didn't realize I said AAPA- my mind was on that from reading the original post. Has anyone contacted any of these organizations to get answers about this? It may be a good idea to post the contact info for the PAEA and ARC-PA so people can give feedback. I sent any email earlier to both.

[SocialMedicine]

i have decided my 4 person practice is going to create a PA program ... I think we will do just as good a job as half the schools listed .... I am going to submit my paperwork to the PAEA tonight and will probably be accepted before the evening news concludes ..... We will be based in NYC since we can charge alot for tuition here (since its NYC its very prestige) and when students cannot find jobs after we will blame the economy, current President/Mayor, and everyone/everything aside from our Greed and poor future planning.

 

 

Already plan on writing letters to the ARC PA PAEA tonight about this .... unreal ..... makes me sick

[KCMA79]

In addidtion to the prospective programs listed above Calif. Baptist College in Riverside, CA is planning to start a PA program. That will mean 4 programs, LLU, Western, RCC/RCRMC and now CBC, all within 25 miles of each other. I would imagine clinical rotations will become harder to find.

[JoelleK]

this is AWFUL news ...... schools that have NO BUSINESS creating medicine practitioners are setting up PA schools for the money ... they could care less about the profession .... absolute disaster .... here is to another 80 low caliber programs with small faculty number and 0 intellectual contribution to medicine or PA's. The faculty at these programs will be too busy managing there students to grow our profession. .

 

With all due respect...I'm currently in an inaugural class at a new school. Our Director is a top notch PA with over 30 years in the field. Our core faculty still hold clinical PA positions and one of our core faculty members himself has over 30 years experience as a PA. My classmates range in age from 22 to 51 with different levels of HCE. Some are published in scientific journals through undergraduate and graduate and professional undertakings. Our professors take time during and after classes to ensure our growth. How can you state flatly that all of these programs will be of low caliber, contribute 0 to the field of medicine, do not care about the profession and will not help each of their students grow? You don't know me or my professors or my classmates nor do you know our capabilities. While I do believe that at some point in the future the field will become somewhat saturated, with the baby boomers and obamacare coming to a head in the near future, I don't think we have to worry too too much - the jobs WILL be there, albeit, we might not be making the almighty $$ we so crave. In terms of money, yes, we all need to make a living, but if you went into this profession just for the money, then you should get out now. When I graduate, I will be 38, and in debt but if I live within my means, I can pay off my loans within 10 years no problem. IMHO, I do not believe it is fair to lump all programs and faculty into what you perceive may be sub-par physician assistants.

[andersenpa]

Remember that the AAPA is an advocacy and membership organization that does not set up, accredit, or endorse programs. It is the PAEA and the ARC-PA that are in charge of that.....just for clarity's sake.

 

He said they must respond, not they must not open programs.

It's totally appropriate for the AAPA to render an opinion on the ramifications of opening up this many new programs.

[andersenpa]

we might not be making the almighty $$ we so crave. In terms of money, yes, we all need to make a living, but if you went into this profession just for the money, then you should get out now. When I graduate, I will be 38, and in debt but if I live within my means, I can pay off my loans within 10 years no problem. IMHO, I do not believe it is fair to lump all programs and faculty into what you perceive may be sub-par physician assistants.

 

It's not that simple. This is not about greedy PAs. The profession already selects for that. The profession pays well relative to the time input in education/training, but it's not an upper class cash cow.

PAs are fighting a principled battle- if you expect me to practice gold standard medicine, and be just as productive as a physician, why is my total compensation arbitrarily set? PAs deserve to be compensated for the work they are doing, not the price tag set by physicians.

It's not just about making a living. It's not just about being content. PAs should be paid on productivity, and not an an external professions' idea of "merit".

[JoelleK]

I do not disagree with you...we should be paid what we are worth and our productivity...my point was slamming new programs and the caliber of professionals teaching them and graduating from them and them being the one and only cause of lower salaries. While it may/likely will contribute, they are not the sole cause. Everyone is just jumping the gun, imo, that we are all going to be paupers because of all of these new programs popping up. It's not our new colleagues driving down the salaries it is those above them. If we bash each other, our educators, and our institutions, then how can we demand respect when we aren't even respecting each other. If we can't band together...we are not going to do ourselves any favors in any arena.

[JoelleK]

Again...I do not mean any disrespect to anyone but I also will not allow myself to be bashed or allow my colleagues and classmates and educators to be bashed when there is absolutely no reason to.

[andersenpa]

I do not disagree with you...we should be paid what we are worth and our productivity...my point was slamming new programs and the caliber of professionals teaching them and graduating from them and them being the one and only cause of lower salaries. While it may/likely will contribute, they are not the sole cause. Everyone is just jumping the gun, imo, that we are all going to be paupers because of all of these new programs popping up. It's not our new colleagues driving down the salaries it is those above them. If we bash each other, our educators, and our institutions, then how can we demand respect when we aren't even respecting each other. If we can't band together...we are not going to do ourselves any favors in any arena.

 

I agree that we can't dimsmiss the quality of these programs without knowing the details about them.

But an influx of new grads WILL depress salaries in certain areas. And it is because the new grads will take lower and lower pay (as competition increases).

[robidf]

As a PA student, I am worried about all of these programs opening. I personally believe that the Affordable Care Act will leave the market with a dire need for providers; my concern comes into play when we discuss the quality of the provider produced. As it is, Physician Assistants were generally well trained and seasoned health care professionals prior to entering the PA field. They came into PA school and were able to build on their prior knowledge, so when they graduated they were effective providers. It is by this perception that I hope the PA profession is able to maintain its success, though this is where my concern for the new programs comes into play. Will all of these new programs assure a quality provider is produced? Will they all have stringent selections, or will we see an influx of 22 year old Anthropology majors who shadowed a PA for 3 weeks?

[BroncoPAS]

In 20 years I predict the PA degree is like the JD .... you almost feel bad for people studying law these days in schools outside the top 10 .... huge debt .... low salaries ..... not much respect or opportunity .

 

I don't want to get too far off topic but the law bubble is a good example of what not to do. Most of the general public don't understand the crisis law students are being confronted with these days as JD programs have saturated the market. Job prospects are worse than low, they are pretty much non-existent unless you attended the top 5 or 10 programs. Debt is unbelievable, tuition continues to rise and more JD programs are being accredited everyday. Keep this doomsday scenario in mind in regards to the PA profession.

[andersenpa]

or will we see an influx of 22 year old Anthropology majors who shadowed a PA for 3 weeks?

 

I know an anthropology major PA who may take umbrage with that comment....

[True Anomaly]

great just what we need, another PA program in the philadelphia area (*sarcasm intended!)

 

Last I had heard, the Jefferson program actually fell through- so likely won't be opening up.

 

Still, plans in place for one in West Chester. May not be Philly, but still close enough

[maryfran123]

I do not disagree with you...we should be paid what we are worth and our productivity...my point was slamming new programs and the caliber of professionals teaching them and graduating from them and them being the one and only cause of lower salaries. While it may/likely will contribute, they are not the sole cause. Everyone is just jumping the gun, imo, that we are all going to be paupers because of all of these new programs popping up. It's not our new colleagues driving down the salaries it is those above them. If we bash each other, our educators, and our institutions, then how can we demand respect when we aren't even respecting each other. If we can't band together...we are not going to do ourselves any favors in any arena.

 

JK--while I agree with the premise of your post, that we cannot evaluate the quality off a PA program based on sheer number of programs, but each new PA program does push down wages not only in the area where it is located but in a surrounding vicinity. It is supply and demand. With each PA program pumping out 30-100 students annually, particularly in tight markets, it does drive the median salary down.

 

You are new to the forum and may not realize this is an ongoing lament of many on this board. The proliferation of PA programs, how science GPA has become more important than HCE, and holy grail of the almighty dollar. The not so secret secret is that PA programs makes their universities LOTS of money. Because of this and you will see this in the next 2-3years with your own new program, they will be "encouraged" to increase class size.

 

No we won't be paupers but you create a market where salaries are kept low because of far more applicants than jobs.

For example, within a 2hr driving radius of my work zip code (NE PA) there are 20+ PA programs. Pennsylvania is #49 out of 50 states for lowest median salaries based upon last review I looked at. Coincidence? I think not.

So, while I am not a "pauper" I am also not thrilled with another PA program opening in Philly. In Philly there are 5 PA programs, now to be 6. So, that means annually that area ALONE graduates over 300PAs.

It is bad or the profession and bad for our economics.

 

So, while I agree we shouldn't be trashing the educational experience this programs will offer, we have a right to question the wisdom in them opening at all.

[mbaggett]

It my understanding that the ARC-PA actually holds theses programs to fairly high standards. Just because all of these are scheduled to open, does not mean that they will. The size of the classes, or the ability to have a program at all is based a lot on the ability of the program to have sufficient rotations for their students. I think it is unreasonable to assume that because new programs are opening that we will naturally flow toward online programs. I have more confidence in my profession than that.

Anyway, less than ten percent of students who apply to PA school get in. There has to be more than ten percent of the application pool that would make quality PAs.

[robidf]

I know an anthropology major PA who may take umbrage with that comment....

 

That wasn't meant to necessarily discredit anthropology but was more of alluding to how the PA profession is changing. As maryfran posted, there has already been a trend away from prior healthcare experience. Was the profession not founded on bolstering previous health care knowledge? Am I to believe that a person who majored in a completely unrelated field (my previous example was Anthropology), and had little to no prior healthcare experience (this is my main focus), should be on the same standing as a medic of 5 years with mediocre grades?

 

This again, is not to discredit a given undergraduate major. I more so am concerned with the influx of people into PA programs of whom have no, or little, prior healthcare experience and are simply going because job prospects look great. I would hope no one would argue about the difference in quality of a PA student with, for example, a paramedic experience of 5 years vs. a young kid who jumps fields because he scored well on the GRE and cant find a job.

[physasst]

JK--while I agree with the premise of your post, that we cannot evaluate the quality off a PA program based on sheer number of programs, but each new PA program does push down wages not only in the area where it is located but in a surrounding vicinity. It is supply and demand. With each PA program pumping out 30-100 students annually, particularly in tight markets, it does drive the median salary down.

 

You are new to the forum and may not realize this is an ongoing lament of many on this board. The proliferation of PA programs, how science GPA has become more important than HCE, and holy grail of the almighty dollar. The not so secret secret is that PA programs makes their universities LOTS of money. Because of this and you will see this in the next 2-3years with your own new program, they will be "encouraged" to increase class size.

 

No we won't be paupers but you create a market where salaries are kept low because of far more applicants than jobs.

For example, within a 2hr driving radius of my work zip code (NE PA) there are 20+ PA programs. Pennsylvania is #49 out of 50 states for lowest median salaries based upon last review I looked at. Coincidence? I think not.

So, while I am not a "pauper" I am also not thrilled with another PA program opening in Philly. In Philly there are 5 PA programs, now to be 6. So, that means annually that area ALONE graduates over 300PAs.

It is bad or the profession and bad for our economics.

 

So, while I agree we shouldn't be trashing the educational experience this programs will offer, we have a right to question the wisdom in them opening at all.

 

 

 

Maryfran, we can't necessarily control the number of schools being opened. We have an accreditation process, and if schools meet that process and feel that there will be enough demand for the degree, than they can pass the accreditation and open a program.

 

We don't have centralized workforce planning (although the new mandated by ACA, GAO Health Workforce Commission is a step in that direction) and because of that, we cannot directly control the number of graduates entering our profession. Medicine tried that and created a huge problem. Market dynamics will dictate the salary and number of providers. For the foreseeable future, demand is going to be constant....

 

Will there be pockets of saturation? Will there be cities or areas that have depressed salaries because of oversaturation? Sure. Those folks will have to move then. Re-locate. Other areas will not. We are discussing an EM PA residency (AGAIN) because the latest workforce modeling is predicting a need of 40 EM providers in the very near future, and more down the road.

 

PA graduates will adapt. Salaries will be depressed in some areas, and people can either choose to live there for less money, or move elsewhere. Eventually, we will reach a saturation point, and the market will start to correct. We can't artificially inflate salaries by limiting access to the profession. There are unintended consequences to such an action.

 

The AMA vis a vis the Flexner report closed a ton of medical schools. Which is why there are only roughly 6,000 more medical students enrolled today, then there were in 1910 when the report was published....SO what was the result? Now there is a push and a call to increase medical school enrollment by 30% by 2018. Which they are doing. Of course, it won't result in any more physicians at all because the number of residencies is fixed by CMS and there is little chance of expanding them now. So, these new medical school students will only displace IMG's for residency positions, but the overall number of BE/BC physicians won't change.

 

Many economists would say that physicians earn entirely too much money, through artificially inflated salary demands secondary to a restricted access to the profession. Physicians in the US earn far more than their peers elsewhere. For example, there was a paper in Health Affairs in 2011 that looked at this, and found that Orthopedic surgeons here were paid 70% more by public payors, and 120% more by private payors than they were in other countries for hip replacements.

 

Bottom line is salaries are going to come down over the next so many years. Heck it's already started, hospitals just saw their reimbursement under CMS cut by 24 billion under the fiscal cliff deal. Do you think that won't impact PAs and physicians employed by hospitals?

 

I know that what I just typed won't be popular, but competition for jobs is a good thing. At least in my opinion.

 

Mike