In the five-week interim session, the microbiology and pharmacology courses continue, and students take a professional seminar course, in which they research and discuss professional issues that will impact their practice as physician assistants. The spring semester consists of a 12-week introduction to clinical skills for physician assistant students, which includes three courses that are interrelated to each other. They continue with instruction in obtaining a problem- oriented medical history and performing a physical examination. Approximately 65 percent of the first-year didactic curriculum is completed with sophomore medical students. I, family medicine II, general internal medicine, pediatrics, and surgery, and four weeks each of emergency medicine, gynecology, and psychiatry.
Students select electives six weeks in length.
These may include geriatrics, cardiology, dermatology, and orthopaedics. The clinical rotations are designed to provide instruction and experience in caring for patients in a way that facilitates effective integration of the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes derived from the basic science and preclinical phases of the program. Clinical training is provided by The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Iowa City and Des Moines, Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, and other affiliated hospitals throughout the state. The program emphasizes primary care medicine, offering students additional clinical experience through placement with selected preceptors involved in office-based practices, typically in medically underserved rural areas. The didactic and clinical phases of the PA program emphasize primary health care delivery and the use of physician assistants as members of the health care team.