This course provides physician assistant students with an introduction to the PA profession. The course encompasses historical origins and early educational models. The course covers various professional entities; licensure, certification, accreditation, professional organizations, and medical ethics.

This is the final course in the Clinical Medicine sequence of courses and is designed to complete the introduction to human disease. The format will be primarily a population-based approach to presenting disease. The unique diseases and developmental issues encountered in pediatrics, geriatrics, and women’s health will be addressed. An introduction to the important medical issues relevant to caring for surgical patients will be presented. Psychiatric illness, geriatrics, musculoskeletal and rheumatology will be presented. Special topics of trauma, burns, and emergency medicine will complete the course. The principles of preventive medicine will continue to be integrated throughout the curriculum.