Valentin Virginia, Najmabadi Shahpar, Warner Mary, White Ryan, Dehn Richard
Virginia Valentin, DrPH, PA-C, is the chair and director of the Physician Assistant Studies department at the University of Kentucky, College of Health Sciences, in Lexington, Kentucky.
Shahpar Najmabadi, PhD, MPH, MS, is a research scientist at the University of Utah, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Division of Physician Assistant Studies, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
J Physician Assist Educ. 2022 Jun 1;33(2):78-86. doi: 10.1097/JPA.0000000000000421.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted United States (US) health professions educational programs. Physician assistant (PA) programs were forced to respond to rapidly changing circumstances early in the pandemic. This study describes the impact that the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic had on PA programs in the United States.
This cross-sectional study is based on data from the COVID-19 Rapid Response Report 1, conducted by the Physician Assistant Education Association in April 2020. The survey sample included 254 US PA program directors with a response rate of 64.2%. Our outcome measures included temporary changes to PA program operations and clinical training, and current and upcoming budget and tuition changes, as well as the impact of the pandemic on faculty and staff employment. We used descriptive statistics to summarize these outcomes, stratified by 4 categories characterizing features of PA programs, including geographical location, academic housing, funding model, and academic health center status.
The COVID-19 pandemic impact on programs varied geographically. A majority of programs reported making numerous temporary changes to their operations. Most programs moved both didactic and clinical education to an online format. Clinical training was temporarily suspended at almost all programs.
PA programs continued training despite the pandemic. The long-term impact of the pandemic may be the instability of the PA education workforce.
2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行对美国卫生专业教育项目产生了重大影响。医师助理（PA）项目在大流行早期就被迫应对迅速变化的情况。本研究描述了COVID-19大流行早期阶段对美国PA项目的影响。
本横断面研究基于医师助理教育协会于2020年4月进行的COVID-19快速反应报告1中的数据。调查样本包括254名美国PA项目主任，回复率为64.2%。我们的结果指标包括PA项目运营和临床培训的临时变化、当前和即将到来的预算及学费变化，以及大流行对教职员工就业的影响。我们使用描述性统计来总结这些结果，并按PA项目的地理位置、学术归属、资金模式和学术健康中心地位这4类特征进行分层。
COVID-19大流行对各项目的影响因地理位置而异。大多数项目报告称其运营做出了许多临时改变。大多数项目将理论教学和临床教育都改为了在线形式。几乎所有项目都暂时停止了临床培训。
尽管大流行，PA项目仍继续开展培训。大流行的长期影响可能是PA教育劳动力的不稳定。
