Clinical Course Descriptions

Family Practice Experience
Clinical experience focuses on the clinical aspects of family practice/ primary care.  Students will participate in history taking, performing physical exams, developing differential diagnoses, formulating diagnoses, designing prevention and management plans, and documenting common medical conditions observed in the family practice setting.  Students will have exposure to a variety of primary care procedures.  Emphasis will be placed on caring for patients across the life-span.

Internal Medicine Outpatient Experience
Clinical experience that focuses on outpatient adult care medicine.  Students will participate in performing complete outpatient history and physical exams and problem-focused history and physical exams, developing problem lists, identifying the clinical presentation of chronic and acute medical disorders, developing differential diagnoses, formulating diagnoses, ordering and interpreting diagnostic tests, and designing management plans for chronic and complex medical problems.

Inpatient Medicine Experience
Clinical experience focuses on the evaluation, diagnosis, and management of acute and chronic inpatient medical conditions.  Students will perform complete inpatient history and physical exams, assist with consultations, and evaluate and manage hospitalized patients from admission to discharge.  Students will be taught how to perform and interpret diagnostic tests commonly utilized in inpatient medicine and to perform common clinical hospital procedures. Students will also be involved with inpatient hospital documentation to include the admission summary, history and physical examination, daily progress note, consultation note, and discharge summary.

Pediatric Medicine Experience
Clinical experience in an outpatient and inpatient (if available) pediatric setting.  Students will participate in the care of patients ranging from neonates to adolescents through well-child and sick-child office visits.  Focus of experience is recognizing the clinical presentation of common pediatric medical problems, developing differential diagnoses, formulating diagnoses, and designing management plans for these patients.  Other areas of focus include clinical application of drug dosing, immunizations, growth and developmental milestones, common diagnostic procedures, nutritional assessment, and documentation and communication with parents and pediatric patients.

Women’s Health Experience
Clinical experience in outpatient women’s healthcare.  Emphasis will be on eliciting and performing the gynecological history and physical examination, screening techniques, diagnostic procedures, management plans, and contraceptive counseling and management.  Focus will also be on pre-natal and post-natal care, menstrual abnormalities, infertility, sexuality issues, menopause, and sexually transmitted diseases.

General Surgery Experience
Emphasis on the clinical evaluation, diagnosis and surgical management of patients in the general surgery setting.  Students will participate in pre-operative and post-operative patient care, outpatient evaluation of surgical candidates, surgical inpatient management, assisting with surgical techniques and cases, and documentation specific to surgical patients.  Students will be exposed to common surgical procedures and the description, indications, contraindications, and complications of each.  Students will also participate in interpreting diagnostic tests utilized in the general surgical environment and in understanding operating room protocol.

Emergency Medicine Experience
Clinical evaluation, diagnosis and management of acute medical and trauma conditions that present to the emergency department.  Students will participate in triaging patients, performing problem-focused history and physical examinations, developing differential diagnoses, formulating diagnoses, and designing management plans for patients presenting to an emergency setting.  Focus will also be on performing emergency procedures, recognizing life-threatening medical conditions, assisting with resuscitation efforts, and interpreting diagnostic tests specific to the emergency medicine setting.

Behavioral Medicine Experience
Clinical experience that introduces students to a variety of behavioral medicine and psychological conditions in an outpatient and/or inpatient setting.  Students will participate in psychiatric interviews and physical examinations, individual and group psychological counseling, development of management strategies for the psychiatric patient, and interpretation of diagnostic and psychological testing.  Focus of experience will be in recognizing psychiatric medical conditions through clinical presentation and the psychiatric interview.

Orthopedic Medicine Experience
Clinical experience that focuses on chronic, acute, and emergent musculoskeletal conditions that present to the orthopedic setting.  Students will participate in clinical outpatient, surgical outpatient, surgical inpatient, consultation, and operating room orthopedics. Focus of experience is to enable student to recognize the clinical presentation of common general orthopedic conditions, order and interpret orthopedic diagnostic tests, and perform specific orthopedic procedures.

Geriatric Medicine Experience
Clinical experience that focuses on all aspects of geriatric medicine including outpatient, inpatient, and nursing home settings.  Students will participate in diagnosing and managing acute and chronic medical conditions specific to the geriatric population, recognizing polypharmacy, and performing functional assessments.

MPAS 5901–Elective Rotation I
PA Student will be permitted to select an area/ discipline of medicine in which they desire to gain additional clinical experience.  A list of elective clinical rotation settings will be provided to the student including the general core rotations and then subspecialty areas of medicine and surgery.

MPAS 5902–Elective Rotation II
PA Student will be permitted to select a second area/ discipline of medicine in which they desire to gain additional clinical experience.  A list of elective clinical rotation settings will be provided to the student including the general core rotations and then subspecialty areas of medicine and surgery.

MPAS 5895–Summative Evaluation
PA Students will complete a one week comprehensive review and evaluation of expected physician assistant knowledge and skills.  A combination of written examinations, clinical procedural skills testing, objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) and diagnostic interpretation will be utilized.  Grading system will be satisfactory/ unsatisfactory.

MPAS 5896–Capstone Project
Course focuses on applying evidence-based medicine principles to a patient case study or original research.  The emphasis of the project will be on formulating a clinical question, summarizing background information about the medical topic, conducting an extensive literature search about the topic, and critiquing journal articles on the topic.  The goal of the project is to answer the clinical question utilizing current research and guidelines, and then apply it to the patient case or research. This is partially an independent study course with required written assignments due at scheduled intervals throughout the clinical curriculum phase of the program. The course will conclude with a poster presentation, oral presentation utilizing PowerPoint, and a written EBM paper.