27-year-old program carries a new name after Accreditation Review Commission’s approval; classes are being held at Pharmacy Hall.
The University of Maryland Graduate School’s physician assistant program has changed its name to the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Physician Assistant Program, or UMB PA Program for short. The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant approved the name change. The program previously was called the UMB/Anne Arundel Community College Collaborative PA Program.
Program director Cherilyn Hendrix, DHEd, MSBME, PA-C, DFAAPA, who also is the assistant dean for physician assistant education and an associate professor at the Graduate School, has a long history with the PA Program, starting as president of Class of 2003, joining the faculty in 2008, and returning to lead the program in 2017.
“It is extremely important for the growth of our students and of our PA Program to reside on this academic medical campus,” Hendrix said. “For our students to finally train within this rich learning environment is paramount to their success as future health care professionals.”
(Learn more about the PA Program at this link.)
To mark the change, the Physician Assistant History Society recognized UMB on its website as its featured PA program for July, noting its 27-year history and the fact that the 40 students in the 2024 cohort who joined this summer will be the first class to be trained entirely on UMB’s campus for the full 25-month, 116-credit program.
The article notes that the program was first accredited with Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) in 1996 and graduated its first cohort in 1998. The Graduate School assumed sponsorship of the program Jan. 1, 2020, while providing a “teach-out” of the last UMB/AACC dually enrolled PA students under a collaborative agreement.
PA accreditation standards now require the sponsoring institution to award a master’s degree as the terminal degree of the profession. As a community college, AACC does not grant master’s degrees, so it partnered with the Graduate School to transition and ultimately shift the PA Program sponsorship to UMB.
In June, the Class of 2024 students participated in a two-day orientation that included campus tours, meetings with PA faculty and staff, and an overview of life as a PA student. On Day 2, students were joined by their families for a celebration and enjoyed a cookout on the lawn of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP). The students will attend classes at UMSOP’s Pharmacy Hall.
“In the fall of 2021, the PA Program began its transition to UMB and reached out to the School of Pharmacy leadership with space needs,” said UMSOP Dean Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP. “In Pharmacy Hall, the program is making use of classrooms, study and lounge space, lockers, and our Objective Structured Clinical Examination Suite. In addition, we will be sharing a director of simulation position, which will provide interprofessional education opportunities between PA and pharmacy students.”
PA students are eligible to sit for the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam upon completion of all required coursework. The program supports students in becoming competent, ethical, and compassionate health care providers who are ready to fulfill the roles and duties of primary care physician assistants.
“The UMB PA Program is proud to continue to educate and train PAs to help increase the health care workforce in Maryland,” Hendrix said.
Becky Ceraul contributed to this article.
(In photo: Members of the UMB PA Program Class of 2024)