Physician Assistants and research

[technocrat626]

Are PAs allowed to conduct medical research/clinical trials? If so, how common or uncommon is it?

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[deleted6669]

Are PAs allowed to conduct medical research/clinical trials? If so, how common or uncommon is it?

yes , but not terribly common at this point. most folks become pa's to avoid this kind of thing.
pa's who are interested in this usually get a doctorate to facilitate the process.
there is now a pa/phd joint program at wake forest that requires the applicant to apply and be accepted to both the pa program and a basic science phd program.
there are also several DHSc(Dr. of health science) programs now which accept pa applicants. nova southeastern and A.t. still are the best known. a friend of mine( pa, dhsc) just graduated with his doctorate and is moving into full time research. there are also 5-6 dual pa, pharmd programs out there which can be done in 5 years, saving 1 yr vs doing both separately. a pa/pharmd is in a great position to do clinical pharmacologic research.

 

[Boatswain2PA]

Most PA programs are now masters level, so they require some sort of masters level research project/thesis/dissertation. The problem is when you cram the entire PA curriculum into 24-28 months, you don't have time to do appropriate research.

We shoulda stayed undergrad level.

 

[deleted6669]

Most PA programs are now masters level, so they require some sort of masters level research project/thesis/dissertation. The problem is when you cram the entire PA curriculum into 24-28 months, you don't have time to do appropriate research.

We shoulda stayed undergrad level.

YUP, I agree. pa school was bs #2 for me as there were very few(2) ms level programs then.
I did the ms later as a postgrad program while working full time.

 

[facetguy]

We shoulda stayed undergrad level.

YUP, I agree.

Aren't there those who propose, in opposite effect, moving toward a doctorate degree for PAs?

 

[GeneValgene]

Are PAs allowed to conduct medical research/clinical trials? If so, how common or uncommon is it?

as people have said already, not too common...although there was one PA on faculty where i went to school that was pretty big into research.

here's a recent publication in NEJM on a norovirus vaccine that he was a part of:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1101245

you can see his name in the author list