Tell ARC-PA that Physician Assistant Students must graduate on time.

Over the course of the past few weeks, COVID-19 has impacted countries across the World and disrupted daily life as we know it.

Among those who have been impacted most by COVID-19 are healthcare professionals including PAs, NPs, MDs, DOs, RNs and many other healthcare providers. The coronavirus has not only impacted practicing professionals, but also the students who are currently in training to become the future of healthcare.

ARC-PA, the accrediting body of physician assistant educational programs, has been far from helpful during this national crisis. PA programs and their students have been struggling to find answers on what to do for clinical education during this time due to students being removed from clinical sites and the lack of guidance from ARC-PA. Since March 10th, ARC-PA has released two vague statements that have provided very little direction on what is acceptable for completing clinical education during this time.

Thankfully, ARC-PA has high standards of education for their programs and students, however during this time of crisis ARC-PA needs to make clear temporary exceptions to their standards of clinical education. Specifically, we are asking ARC-PA to clearly state that clinical students may temporarily fully complete clinical rotation requirements in the form of online distance learning rather than in-person clinical experiences. While we understand the importance of in-person clinical experiences, we must look at the practicality of these types of experiences being completed given the current circumstances. Programs will be unable to place students into clinical sites for weeks to months due to students currently being banned from most health care systems across the country. It is irresponsible for ARC-PA to continue to not acknowledge this, which is why it is necessary that temporary exceptions be made.

It should be noted that ARC-PA would not be alone in making these types of exceptions as many other accrediting boards, medical associations, and medical schools across the country have been allowing unique exceptions to occur in order to graduate students on time.

Now more than ever the United States needs its healthcare heroes, and now more than ever ARC-PA needs to support PAs and PA students.

#PAsSaveLives