UC San Diego graduated its first physician assistant class Oct. 3, sending 30 new PAs into the workforce from the Atkinson Physician Assistant Education Program. The 29-month master's degree program is housed in the School of Medicine on the La Jolla campus.
The cohort logged 42,395 clinical hours and recorded 25,216 patient encounters during its clinical year, according to UC San Diego. Of those encounters, 10,252 were with patients from underserved communities. The students also assisted in 318 surgeries.
The numbers stood out.
"I asked our clinical director to pull some numbers for tonight, because I wanted to know what 30 people actually did out there," class president William Parker said at the commencement ceremony. "We were making an impact on our community, and we were only students."
The cohort was the first to test the program's curriculum, which places PA students alongside medical students, residents and faculty rather than in a separate track. Michelle Daniel, vice dean for medical education, told graduates the model pushed learners in different professions to trust and rely on one another.
Graduate Julie Ann Softley Walsh, who earned her undergraduate degree in political science at UC San Diego, assisted in robotic endometriosis surgery and oculoplastic Mohs surgery repair during her clinical rotations. Walsh said the experience was full of "pinch-me moments" for someone who had been told science was not her strength.
Joe Bolanos, another graduate, said the inaugural class and its professors had to build the program together from scratch. Professors changed and classrooms shifted, Bolanos said, but the quality of the education never wavered.
Students named Alfredo Negrete, chair of pediatrics at El Centro Regional Medical Center, as Preceptor of the Year.
The program holds Accreditation-Provisional status from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA), according to the program's website. That status is limited to no more than five years from the first class's enrollment and does not guarantee full accreditation.
Elias Villarreal, associate dean and founding program director, told graduates the first cohort taught the faculty as much as the faculty taught them. Villarreal said the students showed the program where it was wrong and where it needed to grow, calling the class's feedback an education delivered "in real time, with real stakes."
A second cohort, the Class of 2028, has already received white coats and is working through the same program.
