For more information contact:
Email: paadm@gwumc.edu
Phone: (202) 994-7644

Physician Assistant Program

History

The George Washington University Hospital began to employ a number of ex-military corpsmen with independent duty experience in 1969. They were hired to work in the Emergency Room, under the direction of a physician. They were capable of suturing minor injuries, helping to apply and remove casts, administering medications, drawing blood, starting intravenous fluids, taking electrocardiograms, performing simple hematological and urine tests, and staining blood and bacteriologic smears. The interpretation of tests was always the responsibility of the physician.

This experience was inordinately successful. A systems analysis in 1970 revealed that these ex-military corpsmen were accepted by house staff and faculty alike. All were impressed with the judgment and capability of these young men. The program was then expanded. The corpsmen were hired into the clinic where they performed functions similar to those established in the Emergency Room. Additionally, they began to care for patients in the Narcotic Treatment Program. The GW Physician Assistant Program, established in September 1972, was built on this successful experience and was among the first in the nation to be established in an academic medical center.

This new educational program was originally conceived to be a partial solution to the health manpower shortage of primary care physicians. It was anticipated that these new health care practitioners would provide the physician with technically skilled personnel who had the capacity to perform a number of tasks previously assumed to be the exclusive province of the physician. It was decided that the physician assistant should be “trained in parallel with the student of medicine.”

In 1986 the University Board of Trustees approved a joint Physician Assistant/Master of Public Health Degree (PA/MPH), option for students interested in the clinical application of preventive medicine. It was envisioned that this would be taught in an integrated and simultaneous fashion. It was recognized that there were few precedents at GW for a joint undergraduate (PA) and graduate (MPH) program and that there were no other PA/MPH programs in the nation. Now all students earn a Master of Science in Health Sciences (MSHS) degree or a joint Master of Science in Health Sciences and Master of Public Health Degree (MSHS and MPH).

The GW Physician Assistant Program is now a part of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and has graduated more than a 1,000 physician assistants. It has had continuous national accreditation since its inception. The program has changed its curriculum to reflect the medical needs of the nation while still providing the “technically skilled personnel” originally conceived.