A national survey of performance objectives of physician's assistant training programs.

A nationwide survey of physician's assistant (PA) training programs was carried out to determine the performance expected of students upon graduation. A list of tasks reflecting primary medical care problems was sent to PA program directors asking whether they expected their graduates to be able to perform the task, only to know about the task, or neither to be able to perform nor to have knowledge of the task. The results indicated that all students were expected to perform a history and physical examination. Almost all of the program directors expected students to establish a working diagnosis for the most common problems and to formulate a management plan for many of them. Extensive skills in patient education and counseling were expected. There was considerable congruence among the directors in performance expectations of students. The expected performance of the PA student by graduation emerged as comprehensive and not merely technical.