PA Programs in Arizona > AZ Physican Assistant Information

Last Updated on December 7, 2023 by admin

How To Become A Physician Assistant In Arizona

If you have decided to become a physician assistant and to work legally in the state of Arizona, then you should know that PA training programs are available not only at Associate’s and Bachelor’s degree levels, but also at Master’s levels, the latter being particularly popular these days. The requirements for enrolling in these accredited PA training programs vary greatly depending on the degree you aim for: for example, if you are just getting started and you are pursuing an Associate’s Degree, then you should have a high school diploma or an equivalent along with some amount of health care experience, in order to be considered for admission.

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On the other hand, Bachelor’s Degree training programs for physician assistants require a deeper insight into sciences and math, as well as at least 300 hours of practical hands-on health care experience. All the graduate and undergraduate PA training programs in the state of Arizona encompass didactic coursework in fields like microbiology, human anatomy, pharmacology as well as other important fields that are adjacent to medicine such as biochemistry, pathophysiology or physical diagnosis.

Personal Assistant Job Description In Arizona

The duties and responsibilities of a PA in Arizona vary depending on the type of training and the amount of experience of each personal assistant – nonetheless, the scope of practice remains the same for all physician assistants, and that is to work closely with a licensed physician. These professionals can deal with complicated cases, they can perform physical consultations and they can perform a variety of other medical tasks, including performing ultrasound therapies, whirlpool treatments, taking body fluid specimens to be sent over to the laboratory for analysis, administering treatments and injections, providing massage therapy, applying hot and cold treatment packs and other.

It often happens that in addition to the numerous medical responsibilities every licensed physician assistant must deal with in Arizona, these health care providers are also trained to manage different administrative tasks as well, such as scheduling patients to see their physician, verifying their medical insurance, billing and coding tasks, recording the findings of the physician in the patient charts, performing visual acuity tests as a part of the routine physical check-up and so on and so forth.

Requirements For The Physician Assistant Certification Exam In Arizona

It is the duty of every PA in Arizona to take a National Certification Examination right upon graduation from an accredited physician assistant training program. These National Exams are developed by the National Board of Medical Examiners, along with the National Commission on the Certification of Physician Assistants. After receiving their certification, every physician assistant in Arizona must sit for a recertification exam once every six years, and they must also log at least 100 hours of continuing medical education every 24 months.

Salary and Career Info

The interactive chart above is a visual representation of the annual salary of Arizona PA’s compared to the national annual salaries, all based on the latest May 2022 Occupational Employment Statistics figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Physician Assistant Programs In Arizona

There are two notable accredited schools in Arizona that offer in-depth training programs for physician assistants, and one of them is the MWU or the Midwestern University in Glendale, which was established more than 100 years ago as a private graduate college of medicine. The University offers a plethora of programs of study in medicine, and the awarded degrees include a Physician Assistant Degree. These programs are two-year programs.

Another school that offers PA training program in Arizona is the Arizona School of Health Science, where students can enroll in an entry-level PA program that consists of a 26-month course of study which will eventually result in a Master’s of Science Degree, upon the successful completion. The first 14 months of the program consist of a strong coursework and theoretical training, while the other 12 months consist of clinical practice. During the latter, students must attend constant clinical rotations in different disciplines of medicine, as this is the only way for them to truly get a great and in-depth hands-on experience, experience that will greatly benefit them in the future.

The future physician assistants are carefully supervised by clinical perceptors throughout the length of the course, and they will get to work directly with patients as well as from health care professionals throughout the 26-month training program. At the end of the training, students will develop a capstone paper that will allow them to demonstrate their skills.