NLU PA Program — Didactic Year Handbook
Program Outcomes
The NLU PA Program has adopted the Competencies for the Physician Assistant Profession, developed jointly by ARC-PA, NCCPA, PAEA, and AAPA, as the roadmap for entering clinical practice. The general competency areas are Medical Knowledge, Interpersonal and Communication Skills, Patient Care, Professionalism, Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, and Systems-Based Practice. During the didactic year, achievement of these competencies is assessed primarily through course examinations, formative and summative OSCEs, problem-based learning with standardized patients, and PACKRAT performance, as detailed in course syllabi and the Didactic PA Student Semester Checklist. The Program has translated these competencies into five Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs), each mapped to specific courses and assessed against defined benchmarks (reproduced in full in Appendix I), and into six Program Competencies (C1–C6) that are directly and independently verified through the Program’s summative evaluation during the final four months of the curriculum, consistent with ARC-PA Standard B4.03 (see the B4.03 Six-Competency Summative Evaluation Blueprint, Appendix J).
Technical Standards
To ensure patients receive safe, competent care, the faculty of the NLU PA Program has identified skills and professional behaviors that are essential to successful progression through the didactic and clinical curriculum. Applicants and enrolled students must possess the intellectual, physical, and emotional capacity to meet these standards, either unassisted or with reasonable accommodation. Students seeking accommodation should contact the Program’s disability services resource as early as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made.
Critical Thinking
The ability to measure, calculate, reason, analyze, and synthesize information is essential to problem- solving in medicine. Students must be able to perform demonstrations and exercises in the basic and clinical sciences and apply classroom learning to simulated and real patient scenarios.
Communication Skills
Students must be able to speak, hear, and observe in order to elicit information from patients and standardized patients, describe findings accurately, and perceive nonverbal communication. Students must communicate effectively in both oral and written form.
Observation Skills
Students must be able to accurately observe demonstrations, laboratory exercises, and patient encounters at a distance and close at hand, requiring functional use of vision and somatic sensation.
Motor Skills
Students must have sufficient motor function to perform palpation, auscultation, percussion, and other diagnostic maneuvers taught in the didactic year, and to use basic and instructional equipment safely.
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