A physician assistant entry-level doctoral degree: more harm than good?

Autor: Violet Kulo, Shani Fleming, Karen L. Gordes, Hyun-Jin Jun, James F. Cawley, Gerald Kayingo
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: BMC Medical Education, Vol 21, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1472-6920
DOI: 10.1186/s12909-021-02725-5
Popis: Abstract Background As most health professions in the United States have adopted clinical or practice doctorates, there has been an ongoing debate on whether physician assistants (PAs) should transition from a master’s to a doctorate as the terminal degree. The authors examined perceived risks, benefits and impact of transitioning to an entry-level PA doctoral degree. Methods A multi-prong, mixed-methods approach was used that included a literature review and collecting quantitative and qualitative data using a survey and interviews. Bivariate analysis and binomial logistic regression were performed to evaluate relationships between perceptions/perspectives on an entry-level PA doctoral degree and the anticipated impact of it causing more harm than good to the PA profession. Deductive content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Results Of 636 PA clinicians and students (46% response rate), 457 (72%) disagreed that an entry-level PA doctoral degree should be required. More than half of the respondents (54%) agreed that it should be offered but not required and 380 respondents (60%) agreed that an entry-level doctoral degree would cause more harm than good. Race, educational attainment, occupation, and length of practice as a PA were significantly associated with having a perception of causing more harm. There was strong positive association between the perception of a doctoral degree causing more harm with expectations of having a negative impact on the availability of clinical training sites (OR = 4.39, p
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
Externí odkaz: