About the PA Clinical Year Experience

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.

Clinical Rotation Approval for Non-MUSC PAS Students

Date: 2-12-24

Dear Prospective PAS Student,

MUSC must prioritize clinical experiences for its students. These clinical experiences are an essential requirement of our educational programs. Therefore, and in keeping with a directive of MUSC’s President, Dr. Cole, MUSC providers must prioritize the acceptance of MUSC students for clinical experiences, followed by MUSC employees who attend non-MUSC programs, and in rare instances, and subject to availability, non-MUSC students for clinical placement. Please understand that the practice at most academic health science centers is to only accept their own students for clinical placement.

We understand that finding and securing a preceptor is a challenging process – especially in core areas such as primary care, pediatrics, women’s health, emergency medicine, psychiatric mental health, and adult ICUs (Charleston Hospital). We are lucky that MUSC Health is a competitive workplace with a variety of graduate students seeking clinical placements. If you are a non-MUSC student seeking clinical placement and have identified an MUSC Health clinical preceptor who is agreeable to precept you, please apply using the link below. Please note that we do assist placing non-MUSC students with preceptors.

Non-MUSC students need to apply for 1 rotation at a time, even if you complete back-to-back rotations with the same preceptor:

Apply to complete your application

Additionally, please review the additional FAQs located on the application once you choose a link above. Non-MUSC students, are required to provide information to include an affiliation agreement that identifies their University/Program and contact, immunizations including the Covid-19 vaccine as part of the clinical placement application process, and other information as requested. Once an external student application is complete, the approval may take up to 30 days to process all the paperwork.

Non-MUSC students who come to MUSC without clearance from Human Resources will be removed from the clinical placement, not awarded credit, and the non-MUSC student’s college/university will be notified of the removal.

If you are not able to secure an approved clinical placement at MUSC Health, other resources you may wish to consider include:

Consult with your program’s clinical coordinator and/or assigned faculty.
Contact professional organizations in your chosen field.

FAQs:
Review FAQs on the clinical application form once you apply via the link above. We have also provided FAQ’s for immediate reference. If you have further questions, please email apps@musc.edu.

We wish you all the best in your plan of study!

MUSC APP Best Practice Center
MUSC Office of Education Innovation & Student Life

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.

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About the PA Clinical Year Experience

For Clinical Preceptors