Physician Associate
Subject to all final approvals
The MSc Physician Associate Studies apprenticeship will ensure parity of robust training standards with traditional programmes and include both the same mandatory degree qualification as well as the same occupational competence and outcome. Apprentices will also be subject to the same Physician Associate National Examination as a requirement to practice.
This 2.5 year program will be delivered via blended learning. During the apprenticeship, the learner will be fully engaged in clinical and medical learning. The PA apprentice will be employed in a healthcare environment, working in an appropriate role that will allow them to develop the skills, knowledge, and behaviour of a competent Physician Associate. To further enhance their learning, apprentices will also experience a variety of placements, outside of their own clinical workplace, within primary and secondary care.
In addition to their 'on-the-job' clinical learning, and 'off-the-job' asynchronous and synchronous teaching, created and delivered by academic and clinical staff, apprentices will also be required to spend approximately 4 weeks per year (in 4 x 1-week blocks) at the University of Plymouth, for intensive clinical skills training and assessment, augmenting their workplace-based continuous clinical training and allowing apprentices to be assessed to the same robust standards as those training to become a Physician Associate via the alternative full-time university route.
