News
to Prevent Opioid AbuseProcess described in Special Article(Boston)—Morbidity and mortality from prescription and synthetic opioid use and abuse continues to be a U.S. public health issue. In an effort to help curtail this crisis, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) describe an approach to ensure Physician Assistant (PA) students graduating from any PA program in Massachusetts will have the knowledge and skills to prescribe opiates safely.“As health care educators charged with preparing the next generation of Physician Assistants, faculty in PA programs can impact this growing public health crisis of opioid misuse,” explained corresponding author Susan E. White, MD, Program Director, Physician Assistant Program at BUSM. “PA faculty have the potential to improve the education of our students and hopefully have a positive impact on patient outcomes in Massachusetts and other states where our graduates will practice.”As a result, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, along with the Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants, created a working group for addressing the opioid crisis in the state by convening representatives from all nine PA programs to discuss curricular competencies as the Governor’s Physician Assistant Education Working Group on Prescription Drug Misuse. The nine programs came together and adopted these competencies for a first-in-the-nation, cross-institutional partnership toward the prevention and management of prescription drug misuse.In a Special Article in the Journal of Physician Assistant Education, the authors outline the consensus building techniques they used to build agreement. They also highlight the process used to bring all nine programs together and provide specific examples of how PA Programs teach students.
The authors feel the process, competencies and curricular innovations described in their article have the potential to serve as a road-map for the development of additional statewide, interdisciplinary collaborations around an educational approach to the opioid epidemic.
“It is encouraging to know that we can find common ground and, in doing so, we have the potential to improve the education of our students and hopefully have a positive impact on patient outcomes,” said White, who believes the process implemented in Massachusetts could be used to address other public health crises.
“Physician assistant students need to be prepared to prevent and treat opioid use disorder and opioid overdose,” said DPH Commissioner Monica Bharel, MD, MPH. “We were pleased to work with the PA schools in Massachusetts to incorporate addiction treatment into their school curricula.”
We Will Jump In: 2019 PA Graduates Make Leap to Clinical World
“Today we celebrate the accomplishments of 28 highly successful individuals who comprise the Class of 2019,” said Program Director Susan White, MD, as she opened the fourth commencement exercises for the Physician Assistant Program held Aug. 15 in the 670 Albany Street auditorium.
PA Class of 2021 Celebrates White Coat Ceremony
The Class of 2021 Physician Assistant students celebrated the start of their journey into clinical care through the Boston University School of Medicine Physician Assistant (PA) Program at its annual White Coat Ceremony held July 19.
1st-time Pass Rate NCCPA Board Exam-100%
Congratulations to the Class of 2016 on our inaugural NCCPA PANCE pass rate of 100%! Your hard work and persistence paid off. We are very proud of your success.
Inaugural PA Class of 2016 Commencement
Please join us in congratulating the Class of 2016 on their enormous accomplishment of paving the way for the BUSM PA Program! Highlights include the commencement address by the first PA to be the CEO/President of the NCCPA Dr. Dawn Morton-Rias and student honorees Flora Traub, Sarah Grzybinski and Aline Souza.
Our BUSM Flicker page:
Our BUSM video:
http://www.bumc.bu.edu/2016/08/26/inaugural-pa-program-class-graduates-23/
New Report about PAs from National Governors Association
BU PA Program Student Society Honors Physician Assistant Pioneer Carl M. Toney: An inspiration to all
By: Cole Turno
August 5, 2014
Boston, MA – The Boston University Physician Assistant Program’s inaugural class paid tribute to PA pioneer Carl Toney by naming the student society in his honor at the white coat ceremony in July. The student society will henceforth be referred to as the Carl Toney Society. Mr. Toney was presented a plaque commemorating the event by the society’s president, Elizabeth Flynn.
Carl Toney started his career as a medical corpsman in the Vietnam War. After graduating Duke University’s Physician Assistant Program in 1979, Toney worked clinically in Family Practice, Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. Toney has contributed significantly to the arena of public policy, serving multiple national committees and organizations to include the National Health Service Corps, Director of the Office on AIDS & Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention for the Maine Bureau of Health, the American Public Health Association and many others. Toney has also received numerous national awards and commendations for his work in bringing primary care to underserved and vulnerable populations. Since retiring in 2011 from the University of New England, where he served as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine and Health Policy, Mr. Toney continues working as a consultant on social health and social justice projects.
Carl Toney is an inspiration to all physician assistant students at the outset of their careers; the Carl Toney Society will forever celebrate his achievements.
Source: http://paprogram.mc.duke.edu/Hall-of-Fame/Inductees/Carl-Toney/
Mr. Turno is a first year physician assistant student at Boston University
To Learn More about the Carl Toney Society, please contact:
Mary Warner, PA-C – Program Director
BU PA Program in the News
"The Physician Assistant Will See You Now"
The Boston University PA Program was one of the schools mentioned in a recent New York Times Education Life article, and featured one of our current students. You can access the article here.
Supplemental Application Pre-Registration for Mac Users
For applicants using a Mac computer, it appears that the link to the supplemental application pre-registration does not successfully open in Safari. We recommend that Safari users upgrade their browsers to the latest version. Alternatively, you may access the link using another web browser, such as Firefox.
If you are still unable to access the pre-registration form, please contact the program at 617.638.5744 or send us an email.
Updated Admissions Statistics
The admissions statistics for the Class of 2018 are available for viewing. Please note we utilize a holistic approach when reviewing each applicant's file. These numbers are meant to give a snapshot of the matriculated class but should not be used to predict matriculation.