About the PA Clinical Year Experience

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The clinical education of physician assistants (PA) is at the heart of our program with active clinical experiences each semester. There are a total of nine clinical rotations that commonly occur in a variety of geographic and clinical settings in order to maximize each student’s clinical year experience.

During clinical rotations, students gain real-world experience working as part of healthcare team and hone their skills and knowledge learned in didactic year classes.

The clinical year supervised clinical experiences (also known commonly as “rotations”) occur in seven core fields of medicine including pediatrics, women’s health, mental health, surgery, emergency, internal medicine, and family medicine. An additional rotation, called the “ACE” rotation (adjunct clinical experience), will be assigned by the program to match an area of each student’s interest in an existing subspecialty or core rotation setting. The final rotation during each student’s clinical year is the elective rotation, which is based on that student’s interests. Each student’s participation in clinical activities is carefully organized by the clinical coordinator of operations, clinical coordinator of recruitment, and the coordinator of clinical education and simulation. The instructional objectives, learning outcomes, and technical skills requirements incorporated within the clinical rotation curriculum ensure students attain the clinical competencies required for graduation and their future clinical practice.

For Clinical Preceptors

You can help prepare future physician assistants and impact patient care. The Division of Physician Assistant Studies at MUSC is always looking for new opportunities to expand its resources and to provide unique clinical opportunities for our students. We are currently seeking MDs, DOs, PAs, or NPs to serve as clinical preceptors in the areas of women’s health, mental health, surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, and family medicine. Other specialty areas may also be of need.